CHAPTER 5 

 MAINTAINING THE FERTILITY OF THE LAND 



No system of farming can be considered entirely satis- 

 factory that does not maintain the fertility of the land. 

 In periods of low prices, it is sometimes necessary for the 

 farmer to neglect the future in order to make a living in 

 the present. It is also sometimes necessary for a man 

 who is heavily in debt to follow methods that he will 

 change when he reduces the debt to a safe limit. But, in 

 general, we desire types of farming that will maintain 

 crop yields, and, as prices and land values increase, it 

 becomes desirable to increase yields beyond what they 

 were on the virgin soil. 



118. Are our crop yields decreasing? Somebody 

 started the story that our crop yields are decreasing. It 

 has been repeated so many times that it is now accepted 

 as true. Figure 53 shows the facts in the case. It is 

 the average of the ten leading crops of the United States. 

 It shows that the highest crop yields ever secured have 

 been in the last fifteen years. The increase in yield per 

 acre has been very marked. We have good years and 

 poor years, but crop yields are increasing very rapidly. 

 All that is necessary to have them go up still farther is to 

 pay the farmer more for his produce. By bringing in 

 land that is now little used, and by better methods of 

 farming, that are already known to farmers, it would prob- 

 ably be possible to increase our total production of crops 50 



183 



