over $30 per acre of improved land. The great itale 

 of Illinois gave but $12.48, and Minnesota showed only 

 $8.74. No discrimination attaches to these figures, 

 where all are so much at fault. Nature has given to us 

 the most valuable possession ever committed to man. 

 1 1 can never be duplicated, because there is none like it 

 upon the face of the earth. And we arc racking and 

 impoverishing it exactly as we are felling the forests 

 and rifling the mines. Our soil, once the envy of every 

 other country, the attraction which draws millions of 

 immigrants across the seas, gave an average yield for 

 the whole United States during the 10 years 



\\ith 1896 of 13.5 bushels of wheat per acre. Austria 

 and Hungary each produced over 17 bushels per acre, 

 France 19.8, Germany 27.6 and the United Kingdom 

 32.2 bushels per acre. For the same decade our average 

 yield of oats was less than 30 bushels, while Germany 

 produced 46 and Great Britain 42. For barley the fig- 

 ures are 25 against 33 and 34.6; for rye 15.4 against 

 24 for Germany and 26 for Ireland In the United 

 Kingdom. Belgium, The Netherlands and Denmark a 

 yield of more than 30 bushels of wheat per acre has 

 been the average for the past five years. 



When the most fertile land in the world produces 

 so much less than that of poorer quality elsewhere, and 

 tliis low yield shows a tendency to steady decline, the 

 situation becomes dear. We are robbing the soil, in 

 an effort to get the largest cash returns from each acre 

 of ground in the shortest possible time and with the 

 least possible labor. This soil is not mere dead matter, 



