38 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



This Experiment Station was so fortunate as to inherit at its 

 birth the oldest soil experiment field in America. The series of plots 

 now known as the Morrow plots had been laid out by Professor 

 George E. Morrow and had been running about a decade previous to 

 the founding of the Experiment Station. Who would be bold enough 

 to attempt to assess the value of these old plots ? The records of all 

 these years show, on the one hand, how this rich prairie soil of Illinois 

 can be abused through improper management; or on the other hand, 

 how it can be built up by proper treatment. For example, in 1919 

 the old untreated continuous-corn plot at one end of the series yielded 

 twenty-eight bushels of corn, while the plot at the other end that has 

 been fertilized and kept under a favorable crop rotation gave seventy 

 bushels, and forty-one years before this, these two plots lay in the 

 same field. 



Another set of plots on the University campus, forming a more 

 extensive series, but of more recent origin, are the Davenport plots 

 laid out by Dean Davenport about twenty-five years ago. Both the 

 Morrow and the Davenport series, as we now see them, are what is 

 left of a much larger original layout. In both cases the plots have 

 been reduced in number with the demands of campus developments. 

 Thousands of farmers every year witness the lessons in soil manage- 

 ment as they visit these plots. It would seem that whatever else is 

 changed on this campus, these old plots should be preserved for the 

 benefit of the generations to follow. 



It was in the year 1900 that Dr. Cyril G. Hopkins was appointed 

 to the chair of agronomy and took up his great life work in the study 

 of soils, and at about this time the state made its first generous approp- 

 riation of a special fund for soils investigations. In pursuing the in- 

 vestigations of the soils of Illinois three main lines of procedure were 

 inaugurated; namely, the soil survey, field experiments, and pot cul- 

 ture investigations. In the soil survey the various kinds or types of 

 soil are classified and mapped in such a manner that when the survey 

 is complete every landowner in the state will have a description of the 

 soil on his farm, will know approximately its composition, and will 

 have at hand information relating to its maintenance and improve- 

 ment. This work has progressed so that now eighty counties of the 

 state have been mapped and published reports for nineteen counties 

 have been issued. 



Field experiments, serving for investigation as well as for dem- 

 onstration, were undertaken on the more important types of soil. The 

 number of these fields has increased until there are at present about 



