132 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



the mines of Tennessee and other Southern states, and do you know that 

 two-thirds of the yearly output, or 1,000,000 tons, are being exported? 

 The farmers of England and Germany know that it takes phosphorus to 

 produce grains profitably. ^Slost of the output which remains in this 

 <:ountry is being manufactured into acid phosphate and then into com- 

 plete fertilizers. These materials are being used in the eastern states 

 •where today we have abandoned farms. They act merely as supplements 

 to the plant food in the soil and as soil stimulators. The cost of manu- 

 facture makes the cost of the plant food elements so high, especially 

 in socalled "complete fertilizers," that the grain farmer cannot afford 

 to replace, by their purchase, the plant food removed in crops. Then, 

 too, the added acid will, in many cases, only intensify our already un- 

 favorable conditions for clover growing. But in the form of steamed 

 bone meal or natural rock phosphate, enough phosphorus can be bought 

 and profitably used to more than replace the phosphorus removed in 

 large crops. About $25.00 in the one case and $8.50 in the other, will 

 buy a ton of material-carrying phosphorus enough for more than 1,000 

 bushels of corn or wheat. These materials will not injure the soil, in- 

 deed, we have the rock phosphate naturally in the soil. To be sure, the 

 phosphorus in the ground rock phosphate is not readily available, neither 

 is the stock of phosphorus in our soils available, but they can both be 

 made available by decaying organic matter, and I think it is the business 

 of the farmer to do this. Rock phosphate will not give results upon 

 thin worn soils by itself, it must be turned under with farm manure, 

 second growth clover, or anything which will supply decaying organic 

 matter. 



In this matter of looking after the plant food supply of our soils, 

 we do not believe in letting others do for us that which we can as well 

 do for ourselves. We believe that it is good farm practice and good 

 business to use the natural raw materials at hand, to draw upOn the im- 

 mense supply of nitrogen in ihe air by means of legumes, and, if we are 

 short in one or more of the mineral elements, to get these in the cheapest 

 form possible, apply them to our soils in large excess of crop needs, and 

 then to see to it that we work them out by means of decaying organic 

 matter. 



I am sure, gentlemen, that if we will study earnestly this matter of 

 the productive power of soils, we will be able to adopt systems of farm- 

 ing upon the soils of. Missouri whereby we can continue to do grain 

 farming, do it profitably, by building up our soils, and at the same time 

 establish here, and in all of this great Central West, a permanent agri- 

 culture. 



