FOURTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VIII. 559 



the life or death of a mortgage. With reasonable care and diligence the 

 hog will have done his part. Now, if the mortgagor fails it will be be- 

 cause he has used the proceeds of the hog for other purposes. We must 

 hold these proceeds as a sort of reserve fund, using them only in such 

 a way that there will be certainty of their being available at the time 

 the mortgage shall become due. Strike with an avalanche of hogs 

 and the mortgage will be buried deep, never to be resurrected. 



In closing, I can only say I have tried to bring out a few points. 

 Those who are to follow in this discussion are perhaps more able to 

 handle the subject than I, therefore I will leave the matter in their hands. 



WHAT IS THE MATTER WHTH THE CORN CROP? 



t W. H. Lewis, before the Madison County Farmers' Institute. 



This is an important question. We pride ourselves on our favorable 

 location in the corn belt, and on our possession of a soil of inexhaustible 

 fertility. We market vast numbers of hogs and cattle and train loads of 

 corn, and seem to think we are doing the proper thing. The yield per 

 acre is a variable quantity and we have been in the habit of accounting 

 for all variations l)y a reference to the weather. A season with a proper 

 amount of rainfall was represented by a large yield, and an unfavorable 

 season by a light crop. Besides these variations there seems to be an- 

 other variation that is constant, a diminution of the yield per acre. In 

 the early part of the season, if conditions are favorable, the corn grows 

 well, and the field seems to promise larger yields, but for some reason, 

 -on the farms that have been long in cultivation, the old time crops are 

 no longer produced. We are told to rotate our crops, and that the clover 

 crop in its proper course will restore the soil and the former yields will 

 result. Now I am well aware that I am going in the face of the current 

 theories of our day, but I do not think clover is the "cure-all.'/ 



Looking over our com, there seems to be not enough ears, many 

 stalks being barren, not carrying any ears, and the ears that are pro- 

 duced are too short; few, if any, are full to the tip, but on the contrary 

 most of them have a point of naked cob. one, two or more inches long, 

 the side of the stalk is less, and a ten hill shock is little if any more than 

 half as large as in the good old days. 



When our farms were new, they produced large crops of wheat of 

 good quality. Repeated crops brought less, both in quantity and quality. 

 After wheat failed to produce paying crops all planted corn, and it was 

 for years almost the only grain produced. The wider range of the root 

 system of the corn and its greater ability to reach and appropriate what 

 is needed to maintain growth enabled it to make good crops for a time. 

 After a few successive crops, the diminished yields, the shortened ears 

 and the unfilled tips indicated a lack of some of the essential elements 

 of fertility. Well, say our advisers, clover will remedy all of this. But 

 does it? I say not. When corn follows clover it looks very promising. 



