2l6 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



I see some interesting things in my travels of the country. This 

 past summer I was down in Augusta, Georgia. There I found a little 

 group of farmers whose land had been taken by Johnson Grass — that 

 was where it was first introduced — and they had been compelled by ne- 

 cessity to quit growing cotton. They thought they were ruined, and 

 many abandoned their farms. Then some of them went to growing 

 Johnson Grass hay. They are now growing cowpeas, Johnson Grass 

 and Vetch, and nothing but hay has been grown on those farms for 

 sixty years. Well, those farmers are still living in fine mansions in 

 the city of Augusta. When you pass an unusually fine house you ask 

 your companion who lives there, and his reply is, "Oh, he is one of 

 those gentlemen who grow hay." They get $20 per ton for their l:>est 

 hay ; that's because the rest of the south are growing cotton. Then I 

 was up in Iowa later — in fact, went right from Augusta up to Clar- 

 inda, Iowa. There I rode out among the fields with Henry Wallace, 

 the well known Farm Journal man, when I saw a lot of hay. I said, 

 "What is hay worth here, Mr. Wallace?" "Five dollars a ton," he 

 said. I said, "Why is that? Down in Georgia it is worth $20 a ton, 

 in New York City $15 to $18, in Ohio $10 to $12, and in Iowa only $5 

 a ton ?" "Well," he said, "I will teU you why it is. It is because these 

 fellows out in Iowa have farms that are too good, and they want to get 

 rid of them. They are selling their farms in hay to eastern fellows, 

 and the eastern fellows are building up their farms." Since I have been 

 here I have met a gentleman who is thinking of going back to Virginia 

 and buying some of that land and building it up, a thing demonstrated to 

 be possible. You fellows out here are gradually selling the crops off 

 your farms and ruining your farms, and the eastern fellows are getting 

 rich off of them. Tiiis is an unfortunate thing, a great mistake. I tell 

 you, that for the best results, for continued prosperity, in order that you 

 may leave your farm in good condition for your children, you cannot 

 afford to grow hay and sell it for any great length of time ; it will ex- 

 haust your soil, unless we may learn enough about commercial fertil- 

 izers to hold up the fertility of the soil, a thing we don't know yet. I 

 will say this, however that within the past few years we have begun to 

 get some inkling of the proper manner to fertilize the soil ; and some 

 general rules are being formulated for applying the fertilizers to a few 

 soil types. 



Another matter which is a great source of loss to the Missouri 

 farmer and the farmer of the middle west: the meadows from which you 

 cut hay are being left down too long and allowed to get full of weeds ; 

 frequently from 10 to 50 per cent of the hay consists of weeds. And again, 

 >vhen the weather is unpropitious, the hay is often poorly cured. I 



