THE MAINTENANCE OF FERTILITY 97 



fertilizers. I said to this man that his course was wise, but that he might 

 go still further, for I had noticed that in the thriving young city near him 

 the grocery stores sold only the packed hams and bacon from Chicago, and 

 that his pigs had paid the freight both ways and a profit to the packer, and 

 that he could do some home packing and sell the bacon as well as they and 

 probably get a better price than the packer's meat brought. The German 

 seemed to catch the idea and remarked that he believed he would get 75 cents 

 for his corn. As I write, the hams of the packing houses can be bought at 

 retail here for 10 to 15 cents per pound, while at the same stores the famous 

 hams of the Southeast Virginia farmers are selling for 22 cents per pound. 

 By the production of a superior quality of cured product, the farmer can 

 realize large prices for his grain and not have to take what the market offers 

 for the raw product. Lay it down as a law that no country or community 

 ever became permanently rich by the sale of its raw products only. To some 

 extent the South is beginning to learn this, and all over the country cotton 

 mills are being built and run at a profit and the labor drawn to them from 

 the farms has to be fed by the farms, and a new inducement is offered to the 

 Southern farmer to produce food crops, as his market is growing more rapidly 

 than its supply. 



WHY A SHORT ROTATION IS BEST. 



The Ohio Station, in the series of experiments undertaken for the pur- 

 pose of demonstrating the best method for maintaining the fertility of the 

 soil, arrived at the following conclusion : "Thus far in these experiments, the 

 surplus nitrogen accumulated by a crop of clover, the roots only being left in 

 the ground, has not been more than sufficient to satisfy the demands of the 

 one crop immediately following the clover.* * * * It appears to be clear, 

 therefore, that under the conditions of this experiment, which is made on 

 soils of reduced fertility, and on which there has been no systematic culture 

 of leguminous crops previous to the beginning of this test, we are not main- 

 taining in the soil a supply of nitrogen sufficient for maximum crop produc- 

 tion by simply growing one crop of clover in five years, the roots of which 

 only are left in the ground, the tops being made into hay and removed from 

 the land." Hence it is evident that where it is desirable to have a rotation 

 extending over five years there must be another leguminous crop introduced 

 in order that the supply of nitrogen may be maintained for the production of 

 maximum crops. This can easily be accomplished in a three or four year 

 rotation, and farmers in sections where it has long been the practice to run 

 the land in grass as long as the mowing could be kept good, before going back 



