EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART III. 133 



You have often heard it said, and you may have said it yourself, "My 

 land is too rich for oats, and that is the reason for their lodging." But 

 let me tell you that you never harbored a greater fallacy, for the fact 

 is your land is too poo?- and this is the reason for your oats lodging. I 

 do not mean that the application of barnyard manure to the sail will pre- 

 vent lodging, for it will only increase it, but your soil is lacking in an 

 •essential element, absolutely necessary to give strength and stiffness to 

 the straw. 



Those of us who remember the first grain crops produced on the Iowa 

 prairies can readily call to mind the strong stiff straw of those early 

 days, the crop rarely lodging on the smooth prairie, the hazel brush land 

 being the exception. Does any one believe that our land is richer today 

 than it was when the first crops were produced, for is it not a fact that we, 

 have taken away from the soil many of the elements that had been 

 accumulating for untold ages? 



At one time I had a field bordering on a slough, the high land having 

 been cultivated for years, but as the water level lowered a strip about 

 three rods in width on the side of the slough was broken up and added 

 to the cultivated land. It being desirable to seed the field in grass, the 

 cultivated land that had been in corn the previous year and the new land, 

 the first crop, remember, were both seeded with oats at the same time. 

 All the ground was well cultivated, a fine growth was secured and to 

 within a week of the ripening of the grain there was little perceptible 

 difference in the appearance of the oats on the new and the old land. At 

 that time a severe thunder storm occurred, accompanied by a strong wind 

 and a heavy rainfall that leveled the oats on the old land as if a roller had 

 passed over them and they were all cut "one way" with the harvester. 

 But not one single stalk of the oats on the new ground broke down, the 

 line being as distinctly drawn as was the furrows made by the plow in 

 breaking the sod, the straw strong and stiff, standing erect, in striking 

 contrast with the oats lying flat on the old land. 



At another time I had a grove of timber standing in a cultivated field, 

 a heavy growth of hazel brush covering part of the ground. The trees 

 were grubbed, the hazel brush cut, piled in heaps and burned, the ground 

 broken up and sown with oats and seeded with grass. With the excep- 

 tion of the spots where the brush was burned all the oats lodged, the 

 standing grain indicating the exact location without question, and the 

 exact size of the brush pile. 



A neighbor attempted in the winter to move a dwelling house across 

 one of my fields, but failed in the attempt, and the house was taken apart, 

 the plaster being largely left on the ground. Several years afterward 

 this field was sown in oats, and as is common, the crop lodged, the only 

 exception being the ground on which the house was wrecked; here the 

 oats standing erect, and the only difference as far as I could see being 

 the old plaster left there years ago and which was still to be seen. 



Being by nature of an observing disposition, and a sincere desire to 

 learn and profit by experience, I determined on a series of experiments 

 in an endeavor to add to the soil some element that would add strength 

 to the oats straw and prevent lodging. 



Hog manure consisting of the droppings and decayed corn cobs were 

 tried upon a part of the field, horse manure on an adjoining plat, and 



