Farmers' Week in Agricultural College. 218 



where the land had been recently broken up from clover or alfalfa, in- 

 dicating that our varieties of oats will yield all right if given the proper 

 soil condition. 



To sum up, I would say that the essential principles for increasing 

 our yield of grain are — first, to find the best varieties suited to our con- 

 ditions, and second — when these varieties have been found and become 

 thoroughly adapted to our farm conditions, they should not be discarded 

 every few years for new seed, as the acclimated varieties will undoubted- 

 ly give better yields than seed brought from a distance. However, if 

 the Experiment Station or some skillful grower is improving the variety 

 by breeding, the improved stock should be secured if possible. We 

 should not put all our faith, however, in improved seed alone, as it is 

 necessary to furnish this improved seed a fertile soil in order that it may 

 be productive. 



SOME REQUIREMENTS FOR LARGER YIELDS OF CORN. 



(Prof. C. G. Williams, Ohio Experiment Station. Address Delivered at Columbia During 



Missouri Farmers' Week.) 



In speaking upon the subject announced I am 

 going to assume that we all want to improve our 

 corn yields, and I shall further assume that most 

 of us can so improve. With the ten-year average 

 yield of the United States at a little over 25 bush- 

 els per acre, with your own at a litle over 28 (not 

 counting your recent advance), with the yields 

 of Ohio, Illinois and Iowa running around 32 to 35 

 bushels, there would seem to be plenty of room for 

 improvement. In spite of the interest and enthusi- 



C. G. Willianis. , . , , , ,• • - ^ i? 



asm which we have been stirring up in most oi our 

 states the last few years, the facts are that we have not been growing as 

 much corn per acre in the United States the last twenty years as we 

 grew in the preceding twenty years. There has actually been a falling 

 off of .7 of a bushel per acre in the last twenty years as compared with 

 the preceding twenty. What is the cause of this decrease? Ask the 

 pioneer w^ho left New England in the thirties and moved to Ohio and 

 Indiana and who, a few years later, moved on to Illinois and Missouri 

 and Kansas, and whose children are today leaving these states for 

 Alberta — the man, if you please, who farms the new out of the soil and 

 moves on. This decline is not great — .7 of a bushel — but it would have 

 been greater but for such work as you have been doing here in Missouri, 



