igoo] Shutt — Soils. 67 



The data which I have just cited — obtained by careful experi- 

 ments over a number of years, employing: the cereals, Indian corn 

 and potatoes as test crops — are, in my opinion, of such a striking 

 character as to leave no doubt as to the conclusion to be drawn 

 therefrom. They unmistakably assure us that the clover crop has 

 a most marked effect in increasing- a soil's productiveness, and 

 confirm in the most emphatic manner the chemical results. 



We have referred to the fact that in certain of the western 

 provinces ot the Dominion we find extending over very large 

 areas some of the richest wheat soils in the world. To support 

 this statement we have not only our own analyses, but those of 

 European chemists. Where these soils are being cultivated the 

 system of continuous cropping with wheat is in vogue, and prac- 

 tically nothing is being put back into the soil. From what has 

 been stated in this address it will be apparent th:\t not 

 only are such soils becoming poorer in available plant food con- 

 stituents by the amounts removed yearly in the crops, but 

 that much organic matter and nitrogen is necessarily oxidized and 

 lost by the indispensable cultural operations. When a short time 

 ago in Portage la Prairie, one of our very best wheat areas, I was 

 told by several careful and observ.-^nt farmers that already a 

 diminution in the yield other than that which could be ascribed to 

 climatic influences (for it w^as a more or less steady decrease) was 

 to be observed on the older lands, that is, on those that had been 

 consecutively cropped with wheat for twenty or twenty-five years. 

 Thus it comes about that the farmers in many districts of the 

 Northwest are now recognizing the necessity of adopting some 

 plan for the maintenance of soil fertility, and interested and en- 

 couraged by the results obtained through the use of clover in 

 Eastern Canada, have already commenced a trial of this method. 

 If it behooves the Western farmer who has tilled but for a 

 quarter of a century one ot the most fertile soils of the world, to 

 pay attention to this matter of the restoration of the nitrogen, 

 humus and available mineral food, how much more important is this 

 subject for the farmers of Eastern Canada, where for the most 

 part the soil has been much longer tilled, and where originally it 

 was not of that extreme richness as in the Northwest ! In my 

 opinion, the average yield in all our Eastern provinces would be 



