460 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ness of the soil will he «;ov('ria'(l hy the nmonnt of this least element. 

 If the fanner can increase the amount of this least element, he will 

 in the same proportion increase his crop. 



Improved methods of agriculture will mean the prevention of loss. 

 The constant loss of nitrates and other valuable salts by di-aiiia<jje is 

 enormous. If this loss can be partially checked it will go far toward 

 the preservation of the fertility of the soil. In an ideal condition every- 

 thing removed from the soil would be finally returned to it, and thus 

 the fetility would be constant. Of course, some loss is not to be 

 avoided, but to offset this we have the vast resources upon which we 

 have already begun to draw, the phosphate beds of South Carolina and 

 the nitre beds of Chile. 



The importance of bacteriology in regard to agriculture can hardly 

 be estimated, since comparatively little is known about the subject. 

 Enough has already been discovered to warrant the assertion that this 

 new science will have a marked inlluence. Nitrogen enters into com- 

 binations fitted for plant food so slowly and these compounds decom- 

 pose so readily that combined nitrogen is one of the most precious of 

 plant foods. It has been said that the man who could discover a method 

 of causing the nitrogen of the air to readily enter into combination 

 would double the food supply of the world. Such a method has not 

 been found, if we except Nicola Tesla's wonderful experiment, yet a 

 knowledge of the nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria of the soil will 

 go far toward placing the supply of available nitrogen under control 

 of the farmer. 



Not only is the food question to be affected by methods of cultivation, 

 but it is to be affected by the kind of food consumed. There seems to 

 be a growing tendency tow'ard an increase in the consumption of car- 

 bohydrates, sugar and fruits (foods which draw but little upon the 

 elements of the soil), and a decrease in nitrogenous foods. The elements 

 of these carbohydrates and sugars are the elements of the air and water 

 and are inexhaustible. 



Let us therefore accept Holmes' idea that as the elements of our food 

 pass through their cycle from the earth to the earth again, w^e simply 

 "peel off the sunshine." So as long as the sun continues to shine upon 

 us, sending its energy through so many miles of space to this planet, so 

 long we need have no fear of starvation, or that the w^orld will be un- 

 able to feed its inhabitants. 



