Farmers'' Week in Agricultural College. 131 



The matter could not have been worked out otherwise. We were com- 

 pelled, under stress of circumstances, as well as impeled by training, 

 to do as we did, and land has been cropped to corn year after year, or 

 too commonly with only an occasional grain or grass crop thrown in 

 until it has begun to show a great decrease in productiveness. The 

 poorer lands felt it first, then those of medium fertility, and now the 

 rich soils which farmers were wont to style as inexhaustible, have be- 

 gun to show the effects of this persistent grain growing system. Now 

 couple with this the rapid increase in the value of farm lauds, at the 

 same time that their fertility has been waning, and we are brought face 

 to face with the fact that something must be done from the standpoint 

 of profitable production even with the present high-priced products if 

 we are to make a good return on our investment. It is true, that with 

 a series of good seasons during the late decade, and with the increasing 

 prices of products farmers have, many of them, made money, but con- 

 sider a few unfavorable seasons with the soil fertility already consider- 

 ably exhausted, consider, too, a probable slight decline in the prices of 

 farm products, and either land values must decrease or we must in- 

 crease our acre production to make the business profitable. And in this 

 connection nothing is surer than that we must give greater attention to 

 an increased soil fertility, not only for the farmers' welfare, but for the 

 welfare of the people as a whole. 



We must learn to handle systems of crop rotation, we must know 

 the value of a ton of manure, and how to apply it; we must study the 

 systems of handling legume crops — clovers, cowpeas, alfalfa; we must 

 learn the proper handling of commercial plant foods. No one of these 

 things alone will permanently maintain our corn and other crop yields 

 or maintain our soil's productiveness for our children. Here in the 

 middle west where our soils are naturally fertile and where the system 

 of soil robbery has not yet gone so far that the building of these soils is 

 an economic impossibility, we should set about at once to create a sen- 

 timent by word and by example which shall mean the permanently in- 

 creased productiveness of our lands. Upon this more than upon any 

 other one factor the yields of our future com crops will depend. 



The third important factor in determining com yields is the meth- 

 ods of culture. And here I wish to be more concrete and to call at- 

 tention to some of the more practical considerations involved in the 

 profitable production of corn. Last year the Missouri State iBoard of 

 Agriculture compiled from the reports of a large number of farmers 

 the cost of the various items involved in the production of an acre of 

 corn, and I give the results in the following table : 



