Live Stock Breeders' Association. • 273 



be used only as crop starters. Tillage was but eleven per cent, of 

 the arable area, as faith did not include chemicals as profitable 

 plant food. Here you have nearly 89 per cent, of field area under 

 the plow. 



Throwing all the traditions of the east to the winds, and 

 burning bridges behind me, I began the free use of labor (now em- 

 ploying fifteen men) , of machinery of chemicals (now using 80 tons 

 yearly) , of tillage (having 165 acres in plow land crops and more to 

 follow) , and of the use of all my own capital, and much borrowed 

 money. Farms have been added until the home farm is 932 acres 

 and pasture land on mountain sides, 12 miles away, 1,000 acres. 

 Some $15,000, true to my preachment, has been put into permanent 

 improvements, as much more into personal property, much of 

 the former in clearing and fertilizing lands. I began with an an- 

 nual expense account of $9,000 in increased personal property and 

 running expenses and have run it up to $15,000, with an income 

 of $3,000 for the first year, increasing yearly until it has passed 

 the expense account. This, in a rural town, having a constantly de- 

 creasing farm population, and constantly reducing farm values, 

 until the present, when values have become stationary, with a lean- 

 ing towards the return tide. I epitomize without the sense of 

 boasting. I am here in the interest of a more virile agriculture, 

 and want your confidence, and must have it before I can hope to 

 aid you. 



The elements of the farm success are found in its philosophy 

 as a system, in its construction work for the future years, and in 

 the free use of all the elements of soil fertilization and conservation 

 at command. In the rotation itself is found a large economy of men 

 and teams. It so runs that the teams and men in our short seasons 

 are kept busy the year round. It has no hurried time and no time 

 when labor is not at economic work. Seeding lasts from earliest 

 spring till mid-June, and harvesting from mid-June until the final 

 frosts of fall ; while in the winter are the herds to care for, manure 

 to draw, hay and potatoes to go to market, fifteen miles away, 

 chemicals to draw home, wood to get up for the tenants, etc. This 

 economy in the use of men and horses reduces the acre cost of each 

 to be charged up to the crops. It aids in settling the labor problem 

 by placing in cottage homes, rather than in my own, the laborer's 

 family and in making him a more interested employe. You say 

 here, as with us, that you cannot get labor. This means, you will 

 not give them a chance to live with you by steady work and a home 



A— IS 



