348 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



rnal, or vegetable, are eagerly sought and judiciously applied. It has been 

 charged to England that foreign battlefields have been spoiled of bleaching 

 human bones, to enrich English soil. Certain it is, that she has sought all 

 lands for food to be consumed within her borders for both man and beast, 

 the refuse to enrich her soil. She has bought food from America, guano 

 from Peru, and the refuse from mines all over the world. 



The European farmer knows well the value of manure and the importance 

 of saving it. But in this country we have treated the soil as a vast mine from 

 which to gather all that was possible. The soil is new, and in its pioneer state 

 the first business is to clear and subdue it. The farmer must first make his 

 living, and he often crops the land more than he ought. But as time passes 

 this necessity does not exist, nor is it allowable. As soon as the soil is relieved 

 of its burden of timber and the coarse vegetation is decayed, must the work of 

 reparation begin. It is not best to wait till the crops fail. It is not only 

 wasteful of materials, but it is unprofitable as well. 



Hon. C. 0. Andrews, of Minnesota, in a long and exhaustive report on the 

 condition and needs of spring wheat growing in the northwest, after giving 

 reports from a large number of prominent farmers in the wheat growing sec- 

 tions, draws these conclusions: ''The opinion was universal among those con- 

 sulted, that the yield of wheat has generally been growing perceptibly less for 

 the past ten years. In a few localities the decline is attributed to chinch bugs ; 

 in others it is claimed that a change has occurred in the climate, that the 

 summers are warmer than they were twenty years ago, and that the higher 

 temperature is injurious to the crop (it is very natural to charge the season 

 with cause of failure of crops)." The prevailing sentiment, however, was 

 "that much of the trouble was owing to a continued growing of wheat on the 

 same land year after year, without doing anything to replenish the soil." 



The majority have, in this case, undoubtedly found the true solution. 

 Statistics show that in Iowa, the spring wheat crop in 1870 averaged Id^ 

 bushels per acre, while in 1880, it was but 10.21 bushels — a reduction in yield 

 of three bushels per acre, or more than 20 per cent. In Minnesota, in 1870, 

 the average yield was 18.75 bushels, Avhich, in 1880, had decreased to 11.33 

 bushels, a loss of 7.42 bushels, or nearly 40 per cent. In Wisconsin, the 

 average in 1870, was 15 bushels; in 1880, 12.82 bushels, a decrease of nearly 

 15 per cent. 



A recent article in an agricultural paper defended this wholesale piracy, as 

 I shall term it, on the ground that it paid best for the present, and that as 

 Americans had always found a way out of difficulties, so would the next gen- 

 eration take care of themselves, even if they were robbed by the present. 

 But does it pay? How long can the present generation endure the decrease in 

 wheat yield under the present system in the northwest, which, in Minnesota, 

 has in ten years, according to the figures quoted, been 40 per cent? Not long, 

 I conclude. The end will come all too soon, even for the present owner. 



Hon. Horace Capron, while Commissioner of Agriculture, said in au address 

 at the Illinois State fair in 1870 : " Your soil is wonderfully fertile ; you may 

 be disposed to consider it inexhaustible. It is an injurious, if not a fatal, 

 error. Statistics of production attest that repeated crops of wheat on your 

 best lands show rapid deterioration. Every crop taken from the soil with no 

 return, reduces the capacity of the farm for production in arithmetical ratio, 

 and its capacity for profit in geometrical ratio. Such a course may, for a 

 time, give you a little more ready money, but you are certainly robbing your 

 heirs. It is doubly difficult to renovate them ; how difficult, you can only 



