Live Stock Breeder's' Association. 113 



says : "The only kind of soil treatment in common use (in Illinois) 

 that is even believed to benefit the soil is a crop rotation, including 

 an occasional clover crop. It is a fact, however, that a crop rota- 

 tion is a means of depleting the fertility of the soil, and clover used 

 in this way in grain-farming serves only as a most powerful soil 

 stimulant, leaving the soil poorer with every passing rotation, until 

 the crop yields become reduced, clover being the first crop to fail 

 in this system." Allow me to quote, also, from Bulletin No. 109, 

 Minnesota Station: "A rotation of crops removes more total 

 mineral plant food from the soil than when a grain crop is grown 

 continuously, and thus a rotation may hasten the exhaustion cf 

 fertility." I have quoted these passages from others, because I 

 feel that were I to make the same statements on my own authority, 

 they might not be accepted. 



Now, the next step of progress was this : Not only to rotate 

 the crops, with a legume as one of the crops, but to save and 

 apply barnyard manure to the soil. But a chemical analysis of 

 barnyard manure, and of feeds, shows that under average farm 

 conditions only about 50 or 60 per cent of the fertility taken from 

 the soil by the crops can be returned in the form of manure made 

 by feeding the crops on the farm; so that if we feed out on the 

 farm all that we raise, we will still lose nearly one-half the fertility 

 taken up by the crops. Hence, feeding our crops and applying the 

 manure will only retard the loss of fertility, and will not prevent 

 it. Allow me to quote again from Bulletin No. 109, Minnesota 

 Station : "A rotation of crops, with the occasional use of farm 

 manures and the production of clover will not indefinitely main- 

 tain the fertility of soils." In this connection. Professor Hopkins 

 says : "Light and infrequent applications of farm manure and 

 only occasional crops of clover act to a greater or less extent as 

 soil stimulants * * * * and thus enable the crops to remove 

 much larger amounts of fertility than are actually supplied by the 

 manure or clover." 



We have seen, then, that rest does not restore, that rotation 

 does not return, that clover does not reclaim, that manure does 

 not maintain soil fertility. None of these methods, then, either 

 singly or in combination, will entirely answer the purpose. How, 

 then, are we to maintain the fertility of our soil? There is only one 

 way left — buy it. 



If you have followed me closely, and have accepted what I 

 have said, and the authorities whom I have quoted, we are now in 



A-8 



