130 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



stand more fully the factors which limit our production and to so im- 

 prove that our yields may be increased, and not for this generation only 

 but for the generations that are to follow. 



The factors controlling corn yields, broadly speaking, are those of 

 season, of soil and of methods of culture. The character of the seasons 

 is, of course, not within our control, yet a thorough understanding of 

 the handling of the moisture which fall's will go a long ways towards 

 establishing uniform conditions in this respect. And in no section of 

 the country is this better imderstood or the knowledge more judiciously 

 applied than in large parts of your own and neighboring states. We 

 hear a good deal about changing seasons, of a permanent increase in 

 rainfall over the west, but no one should be deceived. The seasons have 

 not changed permanently. The record of the Weather Bureau shows 

 that certain cycles of high precipitation follow more or less similar 

 cycles of low precipitation and that when a fifty-year period is con- 

 sidered, these cycles alternate with greater or less uniformity. We 

 cannot depend, therefore, upon any supposed change of season as per- 

 manently bettering the condition of the farmer. The wise thing to do 

 is to study carefully all methods of moisture control and depend more 

 upon our ability to provide moisture or drainage, as the case may be, 

 rather than upon the weather. 



Undoubtedly the rainfall is the most important factor now con- 

 trolling com yields. As a class, we have not yet learned the handling 

 of the moisture relations of our soils. AVe -depend too much upon 

 chance, upon the season, and this is strikingly shown by the average 

 corn yields of the coimtry. When the season is favorable throughout 

 the corn belt, the average is high. When it is unfavorable, the average 

 is low. We must learn to control the supply of moisture better, as well 

 as to handle our soil fertility and our methods of culture better if the 

 average yield of corn is to be permanently increased. 



The second great controlling factor in our corn yields is that of 

 soil fertility. No crop is more dependent upon a fertile soil for its 

 profitable culture than is corn. It has been the fertility of our corn 

 belt land coupled, of course, with a favorable climate that has made 

 this the corn growing country of the world. But the way we have 

 been abusing these lands, wasting our heritage, as it were, has been 

 shameful. Not that I am blaming the individual farmer nor the farm- 

 ers as a class, because this has been purely the result of natural condi- 

 tions. We took up this land when it was new. We were pioneers. We 

 had the speculative training of a new people in a new country. We 

 were raised to think that it was our just right to get all from the soil 

 we could without regard to the effect upon the future generations. 



