No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICtnLTURE. 235 



plant aud food; at tlie same time increase of flesh, milk or eggs 

 as the case may be. Such legume farming is a mere makeshift 

 compared to stable manure farming. I think it is a pity for any 

 energetic man to waste his time with a fifteen bushel improvement 

 when he might just as well have a hundred bushels per acre aud 

 have a lot of market produce as well as the manure. 



Again it is much easier to get an acre to produce a higher crop 

 than it is to get a cow to yield a big and continuous milk flow. 

 The thoroughbred acre is much more easily to breed-up than the 

 thoroughbred cow. I will guarantee to take any farmable land and 

 bring it into a state of good fertilitj^ in from three to five years, 

 providing the soil has not anything about it that is strictly wrong 

 constitutionally, so sure am I that soil can be built up to a state 

 surpassing even its virgin fertility; but I would not think of doing 

 it with commercial fertilizers, nor with legume crops, but I am sure 

 it can be done profitably when the farm barn is turned into a fac- 

 tory — I did it both on a little and on a big farm. 



About the same time I started the Flourtown farm there was a 

 big advertisement by a fertilizer firm that it was going to run a 

 profitable grain farm in connection with their fertilizer plant as an 

 advertisement to show farmers how a practical grain growing farm 

 could be made to pay near Philadelphia, Pa., by using absolutely 

 nothing but their own high grade fertilizer as an illustration of 

 the efliciency of fertilizer for farm crops. The farm was splendidly 

 equipped with the best modern machinery, but after a short time 

 the crops became poorer and poorer, the great expectations van- 

 ished and the machinery sold; while the little fifteen acre dairy 

 farm was flying her colors of green and gold over her acres at Flour- 

 town, that had been fed fresh stable manure, and no fertilizer. 

 A fertilizer agent came over to see me and said if I could say 

 my crop of growing corn was the result of his fertilizer he would 

 give me |oOO.OO. And here it is, in the farmer's own power, to make 

 his farm produce any and every season whether wet or dry if he 

 gets to work and starts his farm factory making a produce for 

 the farmer and a by-product for the farm. 



Then there is another way to explain the crops at the Flour- 

 town farm by saying that if every man was a Doctor Detrich then 

 it could be done, that it was the man that did it, not the plant 

 food, not the dairy cow, not the system. While it is very nice to have 

 bouquets thrown at you, I do not accept the compliment, for I know 

 that when other people try and do the same thing, they get like 

 results to my own experience. I can show in every instance where 

 any person has followed the method that was carried on at the 

 15 acre farm and also at the 340 acre farm, that just in that same 

 degree, did improvement follow their efforts. 



To illustrate the system of ripening a field for a crop, take a 

 piece of ground that is practically a run down farm, and I will 

 tell you exactly how you can bring it up to grow good first crops 

 in three years, and good first and second crops in five years, and 

 good first, second and third crops from five to seven years; and if 

 the farm is still kept up and handled as soil ought to be it will 

 grow a fourth crop of grass in a season. Proceed as follows: If 

 the field is a sod of some kind I know nothing better to start with 



