44 PROFITABLE STOCK RAISING 



to the soil, except varying amounts of commercial 

 fertilizer which in recent years he has been com- 

 pelled to use in order to produce a crop. It is a 

 mathematical certainty that continued subtraction 

 from a definite amount will, in time, exhaust the 

 original amount. This is the plan on which the 

 southern farmer has worked. After all, or nearly 

 all, of the virgin land had been brought under cul- 

 tivation, he had only a stated amount of soil fer- 

 tility. Every year for 40 years he has withdrawn 

 from this stated amount all he was able to with- 

 draw in the form of heavy crops, with the result 

 that the original amount of fertility has been very 

 materially decreased throughout the entire South, 

 and, in thousands of instances, has been so nearly 

 exhausted that farming is no longer profitable. 

 There may have been here and there, in individual 

 instances, notable exceptions to this statement, but 

 broadly speaking of the South as a whole, this is 

 an accurate statement of the situation up to within 

 very recent years. 



READJUSTMENT TAKING PLACE 



A few years ago, however, signs of a readjust- 

 ment of southern farm practice became evident in 

 various sections. In some instances this was the 

 result of the depleted soil which had been continu- 

 ously farmed until the fertility it contained had 

 become low and from which the humus had been 

 long ago removed, so that the soil was lifeless and 

 no longer responded in paying proportions to the 

 use of commercial fertilizers. In the far Southwest 

 and in the rich black lands of the Louisiana delta, 

 where the original fertility of the soil had not yet 

 been exhausted, this demand for the changed prac- 



