406 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



grow more stock, and less wheat; grow good stock only; grow grass — corn, 

 oats and barley are grasses — grass is the base of successful agriculture. "No 

 grass, no cattle; no cattle, no manure; no manure, no crops." "Grass is 

 only another name for beef, mutton, bread, and clothing." These are old 

 proverbs. 



Grow all kinds of stock: — sheep, cattle, horses, hogs; feed them well; 

 and they will feed your hungry acres well. 



I shall say nothing of the fertilizers so freely advertised. They are well 

 enough for lands that are non-productive from constant cropping or natural 

 infertility. 



Do not believe that when you spread a load of stable manure on your land 

 that the only benefit derived is from the carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen it 

 contains, less the loss by washing and evaporation. 



We do believe that in the chemical and mechanical decomposition of this 

 manure, by and on the soil, that large amounts of nitrogen and other plant 

 food are taken from the air, and in nature's perfect laboratory, made available 

 for the food of plants. "We know that the inorganic soil supplies us with 

 all our mineral needs ; that three-fourths of our air is nitrogen ; that one- 

 half of all substance is oxygen; that one-ninth of water is hydrogen; that 

 from 40 to 50 per cent of all living things, and of their decayed remains, is 

 carbon. Thus we find ourselves in a vast store-house, filled to overflowing 

 with every element of the highest fertility, needing only the key of knowl- 

 edge to unlock its boundless treasures. 



Let me prophesy that in the near future this fair land will be owned by 

 him who is alone worthy of the trust and the responsibility — the careful, 

 painstaking student of agriculture. 



THE LIMIT OF PROFITABLE INCREASE OF YIELD. 



BY EUGENE DAVENPORT. 



Read before the Albion Farmers' Institute, 1889. 



It is a matter of common experience that our heaviest yields bring the 

 greatest profits, and observation shows that those farmers who raise the 

 largest crops are the most prosperous. He that is niggardly with his farm 

 or his business must be content with low yields and small profits. He that 

 steals from his soil the accumulated wealth of centuries and never repays 

 the loss, will be rewarded by steadily diminishing yields, though at first 

 profitable, the inevitable end is poverty, for nature, as well as man, abhors 

 a thief. 



But while the soil responds liberally to generous treatment, by way of 

 culture and fertilizers, it is evident that there is, for every crop, an upper 

 limit of yield beyond which it is impossible to reach, and that this limit is 

 attained only with enormous expense for fertilizer and labor, and is not 

 profitable. The highest known yield of wheat was 90 bushels per acre. 

 While that particular crop might have been profitable, an effort to secure it 

 every year would not only fail but would result in financial loss. 



The highest, as well as the lowest yields, are not remunerative, and some- 

 where between lies the profit. The question is not : " How large crops can 

 we raise?" but rather : " How large crops can we afford to raise?" Do they 

 increase in direct proportion to fertilizer applied? Where is the line of 



