1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 133 



The few ounces of dry matter which the human body 

 requires daily will hardly be missed from the vast stores of 

 the earth, if fertility is conserved agreeable with nature's 

 laws. If the rocks do not give up their stores fast enough 

 to keep up the slight necessary drain on the fertility, then 

 we will dig in the bowels of the earth for the lacking min- 

 erals, and set the microbes round about the clover roots, 

 and make for them a fit dwelling place in the mellow soil, 

 so that they may seize upon and combine the nitrogen of 

 the air, thereby saving the land from barrenness. 



There is not time to go into all the details of the better 

 methods by which advancement is to be made, but some of 

 the more common ones might be enumerated. Labor and 

 fertility should be concentrated on the better lands, and 

 those which cannot be cultivated at a profit under present 

 conditions should be left for pasturage and forestry. It is 

 certainly the part of wisdom to give back to the forests their 

 own, and it is no reproach to agriculture to acknowledge 

 that we have made mistakes. Starting, then, from the new 

 basis, we are to do those things which are difficult, and 

 produce those things which are high priced, and which 

 require the maximum of skill and the minimum of toil. 

 More clear money can be realized from a rod of mush- 

 rooms than from five acres of corn, provided the requisite 

 knowledge is applied to their production. Mushrooms are 

 seventy-five cents, corn one cent, per pound. Butter at five 

 cents weighs sixteen ounces to the pound, at thirty cents 

 it weighs no more. Quality, not quantity, is what is now 

 lacking. Better quality means better skill, fuller knowl- 

 edge, more and better food for plant and animal. As no 

 nation has ever become highly refined without a varied 

 and appetizing diet, so no animal or plant has ever been 

 improved without improving its food and environment. 



The food supply with which we have to do lies, primarily, 

 mainly in the soil ; the problem is, how to get it out so that 

 it may rotate around the circle of plant, animal and soil. If 

 this be so, then our first study must be how to make the 

 elements in the soil available, and, I may say, palatable as 

 well. The plant asks for food, and we too often give it 

 clods and stones ; it asks for a fine, fairly compact soil, and 



