THE MAINTENANCE OF SOIL FERTILITY. 



C. E. THORNE, M.S.A., DmECTOR, OHIO AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT 

 STATION, WOOSTER, OHIO. 



The Pioneer Farmer. 



Two centuries after the Pilgrim's axe had attacked the 

 primeval forests of eastern Massachusetts, the Pioneer's axe 

 began its similar work in eastern and southern Ohio. In both 

 States alike the first task of the farmer was to clear away the 

 encumbering forest from a little patch of land on which he 

 might grow corn and wheat to feed his family and his animals. 

 With the same crude implements of husbandry which had been 

 in use since man first began to till the soil, both the Pilgrim 

 and the Pioneer laboriously tilled their little fields; both scat- 

 tered their seed grain by hand, as did the sower of the parable; 

 both harvested it with a sickle like that used in Moab's fields; 

 and both threshed the crop with the flail or by trampling it out 

 with animals, as did that farmer thirty centuries before. 



When larger fields were needed more trees were cut down 

 and split into fence rails or burnt in log-heaps on the land, and 

 when the fields first cleared began to show diminishing yields 

 under the superficial husbandry of the day they were turned 

 out to recuperate in weeds and briers, and new clearings were 

 made. Such "worn-out" fields I have seen in Ohio, abandoned 

 after less than half a century's cultivation. 



With the gradual increase of urban population, and with 

 the growth of foreign commerce, wheat became a more and 

 more important crop, and in Ohio it became the principal cash 

 crop. The gradually developing avenues of transportation, 

 first by lake and river, later by canal, and finally by numerous 

 lines of transcontinental railway, together with a soil and 

 climate exceptionally adapted to the production of this crop, 

 all combined to favor its production. 



At the same time, corn held the leading place in both Massa- 

 chusetts and Ohio because of its unparalleled value as a food 



