408 Missouri Agriciill ural Keport. 



so as to be able to apply these now and not wait for years of costly ex- 

 perience to teach what is best. 



A third factor which plays a wonderfully important part in secur- 

 ing the large yields so common in the middle and north European coun- 

 tries is the systematic handling of crop rotations and cropping systems. 

 The com, corn, corn, oats, timothy hay plan of the old time North Mis- 

 sourian, to which I have already referred, would have no place here. To 

 be sure this was at one time the most remunerative and may be yet on 

 rich soils and under particular conditions. It can be made continuously 

 remunerative and the land kept up at the same time by the use of a 

 proper system of green manuring, feeding and fertilizing. It is not that 

 the European farmer grows crops tliat are less exhaustive with the single 

 exception of corn, which is little grown in Central and Northern Europe, 

 but rather that he weaves these into a system which provides green 

 manuring crops to maintain the organic matter in the soil, and that the 

 straw and all other refuse materials are religiously conserved. His 

 cropping system is one which conserves rather than exhausts the soil, 

 one which maintains the organic matter rather than continually decreases 

 it as is the case on the majority of Missouri farms today. 



This matter of a failure to maintain the organic matter in the soil 

 by American farmers is, therefore, greatly emphasized by a comparison 

 of European with American systems. As a matter of fact, the most im- 

 portant factor concerned in the decreased yields of so many American 

 farms is not a lack of plant food in the soil, but a decreased supply of 

 organic matter. This prevents the making available of a sufficient 

 quantity of plant food from the stores already there, through a decreased 

 bacterial activity and a poorer physical condition. This is not saying 

 that green manuring is the only requisite to permanent fertility, but that 

 the maintenance of this supply of organic matter through proper crop- 

 ping systems and a proper return of all available organic material to tiie 

 soil is the first requisite. Commercial fertilizers may take its place for 

 a time, but only for a comparatively short time. The only rational 

 system is one which combines the use of fertilizers, where necessary, with 

 the maintenance of the organic matter and the return of all available 

 material to the soil. 



A fourth great failure of the INIissouri farmer, as seen from Europe, 

 is that of giving too little attention to the use of good seeds. The pro- 

 duction and distribution of good seeds is much better developed here 

 than in America. To be sure, that does not apply .to all American 

 farmers by any means, for they are making great progress in that re- 

 spect, and in this the Missouri Corn Growers' Association and the Mis- 



