2 9 SYSTEMS OF PERMANENT AGRICULTURE 



" Alfalfa will make land in Virginia yield good returns on a valuation of $200 

 per acre, or more, and land that was worth $30 per acre can be set in alfalfa 

 at a cost of about $15 per acre, including lime, fertilizer, seed, and the growth 

 of crimson clove'r. Enthusiasm and faith, with carbonate of lime, phosphorus, 

 and clovers, can make a land beautiful to the eye, inspiring to the soul, and 

 filling to the purse." 



" One most valuable result seen here is apparently that untreated Tennessee 

 phosphate rock is giving as good results as phosphorus in any other form, using 

 not the same amounts, but the same cost equivalents. In fact, there seems de- 

 cided gain from the use of the raw phosphate." 



In a personal communication to the author, Mr. Wing adds the 

 following : 



"This is not guesswork, since checks were left with no fertilizer, and the line 

 is most marked. Apparently on that soil an application of 900 pounds of 

 raw rock gave much better alfalfa than did 400 pounds of raw bone meal or a 

 mixture of 200 pounds of bone meal and 300 pounds of acid phosphate." 



NOTE. On the author's Poorland Farm, including about 320 acres in the prairie 

 section of southern Illinois (gray silt loam on tight clay), limestone is applied at the 

 rate of 2 to 3 tons per acre, and raw rock phosphate at the rate of i ton per acre, 

 every six years. After the phosphorus content of the plowed soil has been increased 

 from 800 pounds per acre to about 2000 per acre, the application of that element will 

 probably be reduced to an amount which will simply maintain the supply. Thus 

 far the use of 1 1 car loads of raw phosphate and 17 car loads of ground limestone has 

 given as satisfactory results as one could reasonably expect during the first crop 

 rotation. For this special soil a six-year rotation is planned, as follows: 



First year Corn (and legume catch crop). 



Second year Part oats or barley, part cowpeas or soy beans. 



Third year Wheat. 



Fourth year Clover, or clover and timothy. 



Fifth year Wheat, or clover and timothy. 



Sixth year Clover, or clover and timothy. 



The plan may be a grain system where wheat is grown the fifth year, only clover 

 seed being harvested the fourth and sixth years, or it may be changed to a live stock 

 system by having clover for pasture and meadow the last three years, all manure 

 produced being applied to the pasture land to be plowed under for corn. While 

 the untreated land has produced about one third of a ton per acre of poor hay (part 

 timothy and redtop, part foul grass, sorrel, and other weeds), the treated land has 

 produced more than i tons per acre of clean clover and timothy hay. A car load of 

 limestone or phosphate is purchased with less hesitation than a cow or a horse, and 

 at about the same cost. 



A careful study of the literature of agricultural science from 

 European countries reveals no investigations with the use of raw 

 rock phosphate that compare in value with those conducted by 



