EQUIPMENTS NECESSARY 93 



and at the same time the soil fertility be main- 

 tained and even increased, is an established fact, 

 and is no longer open to serious discussion, but 

 it can not be done by the old methods of farming 

 which have been mostly in vogue in this land of 

 ours, and by which our soils have become worn 

 and worn-out. 



The fact that when our soils were new and were 

 covered with the wilderness of timber and prairie 

 growth, it required brawn rather than brains to 

 subdue them and bring them into cultivation, and 

 the further fact that the simple covering of seed 

 produced large crops without intensive cultiva- 

 tion, has led to an environment upon the farm by 

 which the study of the needs of the soil was neg- 

 lected; for, as shown, the soil seemed to be able 

 for several generations to produce the crops that 

 pay the profit without anything being done to feed 

 it, that fertility might be maintained and in- 

 creased ; but in process of time the fertility of the 

 soil was farmed out, and we have already shown 

 that the farmers of our country, when they were 

 brought face to face with this condition, simply 

 moved on and preempted new lands and subdued 

 them to the same process of cultivation and soil 

 exhaustion. But now, when nearly all our virgin 

 soil has been preempted, we are compelled to do 

 the things that will restore fertility to our soils 

 or perish. 



If the farm is a manufacturing plant and the 

 soil is the raw material out of which is shaped 

 and fashioned the farm's finished products, it is 

 therefore evident that the soil must be at its best 



