542 AGRICULTURE. 



therefore, scientific fertilization may be said to be very plainly 

 impracticable, over a great part of the country. The farmer 

 cannot, any more than another man, perform impossible things. 

 When wheat and corn fail to pay the cost of their production, 

 under the guidance of science and practical skill ; when live- 

 stock cannot be grazed and fed, except at a loss ; when debt 

 accumulates and taxes increase ; no power is able to arouse the 

 interest of the farmer in scientific inventions and methods of 

 culture. The day has come when the great food-producing area 

 of the United States must be scientifically fertilized, or rapid 

 and continuous decline of its producing capacity is inevitable. 

 There exists already an urgent lack of organic matter in the 

 corn and wheat lands, and it is becoming more urgent with each 

 season. Until there is a restoration of abundant organic mat- 

 ter, ammonia salts and acid phosphates will be applied only at a 

 loss, accompanied by the ruin of the lands, left bare, and ex- 

 posed to the leaching of the tremendous downpour of wintry 

 rain. 



Probably there has never been devised, for the corn and wheat 

 area, a better rotation than the old five-shift system. Each 

 field in succession lay in clover two years ; the clover being 

 seldom mown, but almost universally grazed both seasons ; the 

 stock being taken off early in the second season, and the after- 

 growth turned under for wheat. The stubble of this wheat, cut 

 very high, made of itself a dense cover for the land ; and the 

 heavy growth of foxtail and dogweed which came up prevented 

 washing and leaching during winter. This was turned under 

 the next spring for corn, and all the farm-yard manure also 

 applied to the corn crop. The corn stubble was seeded again 

 to wheat, with guano, and re-seeded to clover. 



In addition to the five regular fields of the rotation, there were 

 timothy meadows, and .orchard grass, and clover lots, for graz- 

 ing and mowing ; and a permanent blue-grass pasture ; only 

 broken up as the condition of the lot, or meadow, or pasture, 

 rendered it advisable. Large amounts of hay, straw, and corn 

 fodder were produced and fed out on the farm ; and besides, the 

 usual practice then was to have the wheat ground, sell the flour, 

 and feed out the wheat bran. The weak point in this rotation 

 was the corn-land wheat, and this was judiciously and skilfully 



