406 Missouri Agricullural Report. 



In viewing our agriculture from a European viewpoint, therefore, 

 the most important things to be mentioned so far as helping our farmers 

 to better things is concerned, are not those in which we excel the Euro- 

 pean, by reason of our newer lands and smaller population, but those 

 in which our agriculture is inferior. The American farmer needs no 

 praise, no compliments; he has had enough of these. What he does need is, 

 first, a jorofound realization of the fact that from a European viewpoint 

 he is coming far short of his opportunities, and second, a knowledge of how 

 he can improve his methods so as to make his operations not only more 

 profitable, but so as to leave his land to his sons as productive or even 

 more productive than he found it. The latter is a matter of detailed 

 study by the farmer himself with the use of every available aid, but a 

 few observations on the former from the vantagepoint of central Germany 

 may be of interest to Missouri farmers. 



One of the most important things that impresses one in European 

 agriculture is the extreme care used in saving every available bit of 

 material that will keep the soil fertile. Nothing is wasted. Every avail- 

 able thing goes back on the land. If the Missouri farmer could be 

 brought to a realization of what is actually lost every year through the 

 careless handling of manure, through the waste of the great quantities 

 of rnaterial which would add organic matter to the soil, and through the 

 washing of bare lands, and then if he could be induced to prevent these 

 losses, the return M^ould mean millions to the State. I do not mean that it 

 is necessary to have the same point of view as the European peasant 

 woman gathering manure from the roadway in a l)asket, but our farmers 

 must learn to ))e saving of their soil resources if we are to continue 

 prosperous. The material that is annually lost to the soil from the 

 average Missouri farm, if put to proper use, would support another family, 

 and within sixty years, at the present rate of increase in population of 

 the United States, each farm shall have this extra family to support. 

 This demand will, of course, be partially met by a curtailing of exports, 

 as there is little hope of bringing about prevention of the present loss in 

 anything like sixty years, but the sooner our farmers realize the necessity 

 of preventing this waste the sooner will they adopt remedial measures. 

 One cannot see the great care used in European countries in preventing 

 waste without being profoundly impressed with the carelessness of the 

 average middle west American farmer in this respect. In my opinon, too 

 much importance cannot be attached to this matter. 



A second impression that one receives in going about among the 

 European farmers is the skill with which they IhiikIIc their soils, The 

 care they use in fii)plying manure, the skill they display in calculating 



