92 THE BUSINESS OF FAEMING 



Nearly forty years ago the author assisted in 

 clearing a heavy growth of timber from parts of 

 rich Indiana timber soil. It was a hard, labo- 

 rious task to fit it for the plow the first time, and 

 not only hard and laborious, but a trying, exasper- 

 ating task, to plow the small area of soil not oc- 

 cupied by the tree stumps and roots, which almost 

 occupied the entire soil, but it was only necessary 

 to sufficiently scratch the soil to cover the seed. 

 However, the plowing of the soil under these con- 

 ditions was attended with such discomforts and 

 exasperating difficulties, as would cause a young 

 man engaged in the task to dream of a city life 

 and to abandon the farm. 



In the course of time the stumps and the roots 

 decayed and were removed and the soil was sub- 

 jected to years of crop growing with little heed 

 being paid to soil fertilization or the maintenance 

 of soil fertility, and so it took less than a genera- 

 tion to put them into the worn soil class. 



A short time ago it was the author's privilege 

 to tramp over the fields he had helped to clear of 

 their forest growth nearly a half century ago, and 

 to him it was a pathetic sight to behold their 

 wasted fertility, as evidenced by their stunted 

 crop growth. If these soils had been farmed un- 

 der the business system that obtains in our most 

 successful manufacturing plants and business 

 houses, their fertility would have been kept up 

 and they would to-day be as rich in plant food ele- 

 ments as when first rescued from the wilderness 

 of timber growth. 



That farm products can be produced at a profit, 



