Corn Growers' Association. 1^1 



deterioration of the soil was discussed. It will not be possible for 

 me, in the limited time at my disposal, to follow out all the lines 

 of thought that were presented as a result of the discussion at 

 the Conference and subsequently by the commission that was ap- 

 pointed by the President. 



I think, however, that you will be interested in the main re- 

 sults of such investigations; that is, that throughout all history, 

 so far as records go, the soils of the world have never yielded 

 larger crops than they are yielding now. We find through research 

 in the historic works of foreign countries that in Germany, so 

 far as statistics taken from the old family records of the baronial 

 estates can be relied upon, the yields three hundred years ago 

 were about one-third as large as the yields today. Taking the 

 records of the countries of the world who have by agreement 

 adopted the same general methods of statistical research, we 

 find that the records for the past thirty or forty years (which 

 have been accurately obtained and recorded) show that the yields 

 of the crops of Europe, on soils that have been cultivated for at 

 least a thousand years — that the yields during the past fifteen, 

 twenty, thirty, forty years have increased more rapidly than they 

 have on the newer soils of the United States. 



ARE OUR SOILS V^EARING OUT. 



There is a general impression that the soils of the United 

 States, or particular portions of the United States, are wearing 

 out, that they are becoming exhausted, that we are having now 

 abandoned farms. One of the results of the investigations into this 

 important question — for it is a question of the utmost importance 

 to the nation, the question as to whether the soils are wearing out 

 and how long they can be expected to last with an increasing popu- 

 lation — is that we find that so far as statistics can be relied upon our 

 crop yields are increasing, that on the average our farms are better 

 tilled, we are paying more attention to seed selection, to crop adap- 

 tation, and to fertilization, with the result that we are getting 

 more from our soils than we were forty years ago. Forty years! 

 Our records have been kept for forty years — that is almost as 

 long as the life of a large part of the people of the United States. 

 Many of you here can doubtless remember the settlement of this 

 part of the country. Many of you will remember when the prairies 

 were considered useless for agricultural purposes — they are now 

 producing magnificent yields of corn. But the impression has 

 gone out that our virgin soils are declining in fertility. The 



