162 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



it takes a direct appeal to a man's business judgment in order 

 to be sure to gain his attention. It is just such an appeal that 

 the new idea in the handling of our soil will make to the man 

 who considers the matter with an open mind. 



There is another phase to the matter of maintaining fertility 

 which should appeal to every farmer who is interested in the wel- 

 fare of the future citizens of Missouri. I like to think of the 

 land which we own as just so much of the State's domain for 

 which we are responsible during our lifetime, and, if possible, we 

 should manage this so as to leave it to our children in as good 

 or in a better condition of fertility than that in which we found 

 it. If a man can do this he has shown himself a public benefactor 

 — a true citizen of this State. If, on the other hand, his land is 

 left to his children in a poorer condition than he found it, such a 

 man has not fulfilled his duty as a citizen. If the man who builds 

 up the fertility and the productiveness of his land is a public 

 benefactor, then he who willingly and knowingly tears down the 

 fertility of his land and leaves it to future generations in a poorer 

 condition than he found it could almost be termed a public curse. 



I do not mean to say that there is never an occasion for a 

 man to practice what might be termed the destructive system of 

 agriculture, for I realize most fully that it is sometimes neces- 

 sary, even for the man who is sufficiently well informed on agri- 

 cultural practice, and who would prefer the constructive method. 

 A young man going on to a farm with a heavy debt must fre- 

 quently farm the land hard for a time; he must meet his interest; 

 he must pay for improvements ; but the great difficulty is that too 

 often when men begin in this way the habit becomes so firmly 

 fixed that it is impossible thereafter to change. We, therefore, 

 have the man who continues to skim the cream from one farm that 

 he may buy another, and then continues the same practice on this 

 that he may buy a third, and so on. Such has been the practice 

 of the so-called progressive or prosperous farmers, and while 1 

 am not laying blame on such men for the ideals which they have 

 held, and while I realize that such men have been largely instru- 

 mental in giving us our present prosperity, I do contend that for 

 the coming generation this ideal is wrong, and that these methods 

 are no longer suited to the conditions which we must meet in the 

 rapidly changing order of our agricultural development. What 

 the young man needs to do, after he has his mortgage lifted, is to 

 begin again to build up the land that he has depleted, and his 

 ambition should never be satisfied until the land is again as fertile, 



