214^ Missouri Agric 1(1 1 (ir<il luporl. 



and such work as has been done in other states along the lines of im- 

 proving the seed and the culture of corn. This loss is real and im- 

 portant. It means, gentlemen, the gradual impoverishment of our soil, 

 and right here is the first requirement, the first chance for improvement 

 if we would increase our corn yields. 



Now, what can we do along this line? In the first place, I want 

 to call your attention to the value of a good, systematic rotation of crops. 

 At the Ohio Experiment Station we began some 17 or 18 years ago a 

 series of experiments in which we have grown corn in continuous culture 

 — corn, corn, corn, and have kept it up for 17 years now ; and right 

 along side on similar land we have grown corn under exactly the same 

 conditions aside from a rotation of corn, oats, wheat, clover and timothy. 

 I want to give you some of the results of these two systems of farming 

 that you may see whither you are tending, and I want to give these 

 yields in periods of five years each. The first five years that we grew 

 corn without any fertilizer or manure, we got an average yield of 26 

 bushels per acre. We kept that right up — no treatment with fertilizer 

 or manure — simply corn, corn, corn. The second five years the average 

 was 17 bushels per acre. Going down hill, you see. And the third 

 five years we averaged 10.4 bushels per acre, and the end is not yet — 

 still going down. Now, in a five-year rotation of corn, oats, wheat, 

 clover and timothy the yield has been 31.9 bushels for the first period, 

 30.8 for the second and 31.1 for the third — practically standing on a 

 dead level. In other words, the rotation of crops has made the differ- 

 ence between that marked decline and the dead level. The soil where 

 these experiments were conducted was not a rich soil to begin with. 

 These yields, of course, are low. 



It is evident that such soil needs treatment of some sort. Let's see 

 what effect stable manure will have. On some of those continuous plots 

 we use five tons of manure every year. "We started off the first five 

 years with an average yield of 43 bushels per acre. The second five 

 years there was an average of 40 bushels — going down under continuous 

 culture in spite of the fact that we used the manure, and the third five 

 years we dropped to 3414 bushels. 



Under rotation we did not use as much manure in the five years as 

 in continuous culture, applying only 16 tons per rotation period, where- 

 as in continuous culture we used 25 tons every five years — but note the 

 very different results. 



Under rotation with manure, as stated, we started off with a little 

 lower yield — 40.7 bushels. But the second period came up to 49.5 and 



