SOIL SESSION. 141 



highways; and through their appropriation for military uses and park 

 reserves. To meet the rapidly increasing demands upon these inevitably 

 decreasing areas, the methods of soil management must be improved; 

 the underlying sciences, in their relation to it, must be developed and the 

 practices squared to their laws and teachings just as in great commer- 

 <:ial, mining and manufacturing industries these have been and are be- 

 ing squared to theirs. This can only be effectively done through or- 

 ganized effort directed by that training and experience which the com- 

 plex and difficult nature of the problems demand, but which no body of 

 farmers has ever been or can be expected to become able to command. 

 Those industries, which from their nature, can syndicate large amounts 

 of capital in their interest may and do, economically and effectively, com- 

 mand scientific methods and skill for the express purpose of develop- 

 ing those underlying principles which good business men are quick to 

 recognize as indispensable to commercial success. But in agriculture, 

 only a few of its commercial and manufacturing phases are any of these 

 means of improvement available, and hence the extreme necessity for 

 and the appropriateness of government aid in bringing to a working basis 

 the knowledge of the underlying principles of soil management and of 

 leading phases of other agricultural practices. 



Up to the present time the burden of effort has been expended in 

 developing the commercial and manufacturing phases of agriculture 

 rather than upon those conditions which determine and maintain a 

 high productive capacity of the soil. Such an evolution has been nat- 

 ural, rational, and up to the present time, perhaps, most advantageous; 

 but we are fast approaching that stage when it will become of the greatest 

 importance, not that less attention shall be given to advancing the man- 

 ufacturing and commercial phases of agriculture, but when much more 

 and effective effort must be given to those conditions which tend to 

 increase the yield per unit area on all types of soil. 



Universally, the world over, under all climatic conditions and for 

 all types, the bad management of soils has been found to greatly re- 

 duce their productive capacity, the fall often being, for some crops, to 

 as low as one-fifth of the virgin productive power. Such great reduc- 

 tions, too, have generally been effected in comparatively brief periods, 

 often during the life and management of a single man. Within my own 

 personal experience, and doubtless within that of many of you, inher- 

 ently rich soils whose normal productive capacities ranged from 30 to 45 

 bushels of wheat have been reduced, by faulty management, to 15 and 

 veven as low as 8 bushels per acre; and this during a period of cropping 

 covering much less than fifty years. Reductions in productive capacity 

 like these are not due to changes in climate, in cultural methods, in 



