274 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



and the pay that the industries do. You can afford it, or you can- 

 not afford to farm. But the labor must be based upon a more com- 

 prehensive agriculture. 



I have said that the progress of agriculture is the measure of 

 the world's progress. Crops are the measure of farm progress, or 

 success and available plant food is the measure of crop growth. On 

 this corner stone I rested in the final analysis my faith or hope 

 in the successful outcome of my farm venture. Be not deceived, 

 on this rests your future, and it will fare ill or well with you 

 as you measure up to this truth. I know well the economy of your 

 system of crop management and of stock feeding, yet I am im- 

 pressed still, as of yore, while with you, that the harvesting in 

 wholesale and orderly of all your crops, while at their best, and 

 the orderly distribution of the completely saved offal, both solid and 

 liquid, to the crops in regulated amounts associated with a wise 

 rotation, would result in such an increase of crop output as to more 

 than justify the costs. 



My Yankee neighbor farmers had narrowed their tillage areas 

 in response to the call for their boys and their money to develop 

 the great west and to found in nearby cities the new and the re- 

 organized industries growing out of the applied sciences. That 

 narrow farming remained after its necessity had passed away, as a 

 habit of mind and as a failure to perceive the source of plant food 

 requisite to maintain broader tillage. No manure, no crops, in 

 New Hampshire. Plant food was the crux of the situation. I 

 sought it in five sources : 



Rotation of crops was the first. Nature rotates crops, not 

 as an accident, but in obedience to a fixed law. Observation in all 

 ages has taught, tutored and educated man the value of rotation. 

 On your State farm, just out here, in a four years' rotation trial, 

 I found that wheat after wheat gave on unmanured area 13.91 

 bushels; wheat after wheat manured with six tons annually, gave 

 24.28 bushels; wheat in unmanured rotation gave 30.10 bushels, 

 while wheat in a manured rotation gave 38.08 bushels. In these 

 trials the value of rotation exceeded the value of manuring. This 

 gain grows out of the laws of plant growth and soil conditions or 

 natural laws. What are some of these laws or conditions? I can- 

 not discuss them, but enumerate a few. Plants have different leaf 

 development, affecting feeding habits and vaporizing powers, on 

 the later score varying the moisture of the soil by a very large and 

 vital amount. They root at different depths and feed on varying 

 areas of the soil. They have each varying root weights and com- 



