594 VARIOUS FERTILITY FACTORS 



" Public prosperity is like a tree : agriculture is its roots ; industry and com- 

 merce are its branches and leaves. If the root suffers, the leaves fall, the 

 branches break, and the tree dies." CHINESE PHILOSOPHY. 



" Let us never forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important 

 labor of man. Unstable is the future of a country which has lost its taste for 

 agriculture. If there is one lesson of history that is unmistakable, it is that 

 national strength lies very near the soil." DANIEL WEBSTER. 



" The farm is the basis of all industry, but for many years this country has 

 made the mistake of unduly assisting manufacture, commerce, and other ac- 

 tivities that center in cities, at the expense of the farm." JAMES J. HILL. 



NOTE. In the Orange Judd Farmer (January 22, 1910), Professor F. H. 

 King, who has recently visited the Orient, reports estimates based upon 

 Japanese statistics as follows (Japan's population is nearly 53 millions): 



Japan cultivates less than 14 million acres of land, to which are applied 

 annually about 24 million tons of human manure ; 23 million tons of compost 

 made from animal manures and waste materials mixed with much grass, straw, 

 sods, and mud (from canals and ditches); 5 million tons of green weeds, 

 gathered from "weed lands " on uncultivated hills ; and 776,000 tons of ashes. 

 These materials make an average annual application of 3.8 tons per acre, con- 

 taining, according to the accepted analyses of official Japanese chemists, 54 

 pounds of nitrogen, 14.8 pounds of phosphorus, and 29.2 pounds of potassium. 

 In 1908 Japan imported 753,074 tons of commercial fertilizers (phosphates, 

 etc.), which would probably raise to 20 pounds per acre per annum the amount 

 of phosphorus applied. Besides this, large use is made of legume crops as 

 green manures, and, where rice is grown, grass, straw, and chaff are used 

 extensively for direct application to the land as organic manures. 



From the data given here and in Table 121, it will be seen that the total excre- 

 ments per individual per year amount to about 900 pounds, and contain about 

 6 pounds of nitrogen, I pound of phosphorus, and i| pounds of potassium. 



In comparison it may be stated that data gathered from digestion experi- 

 ments with 24 men during a period of 220 days, by Dr. H. S. Grindley, Uni- 

 versity of Illinois, showed the average total excrements per year as 1032 pounds, 

 containing 9.6 pounds of nitrogen and i .03 pounds of phosphorus ; while Wolff 

 reports a total of 1035 pounds, containing 10.5 pounds of nitrogen, i .3 of phos- 

 phorus, 1 .8 of potassium, and 6.9 pounds of salt (NaCl). 



When we consider that nitrogen can be secured by legumes from the inex- 

 haustible atmospheric supply, that potassium is exceedingly abundant in most 

 soils, measured by the amount necessarily sold in either grain farming or live- 

 stock farming, and that the United States is exporting each year, for about 2 

 cents a pound, twice as much phosphorus as leaves our farms in the total wheat 

 crop of the country, then the " argument " in favor of discarding our present 

 system of city sewage disposal for that of China does not appear to be financially 

 sound, with the present cost of labor in the United States. 



