52 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL VI. No. 1177 



rust, blight, wilt and rot, and insect mites on fer- 

 tile soils as upon unfertile soUs. 



Prom "Interpretations of Results noted 

 in Experiments upon Cereal Cropping 

 Methods after Soil Sterilization," in Pro- 

 ceedings of American Society of Agronomy, 

 Vol. 2, 1910 : 



Soila and seed may be, and usually are, infected 

 by several destructive wheat-destroying, parasitic 

 fungi. Indeed, these are foimd to be apparently 

 cosmopolitan in distribution with the wheat plant. 

 They are especially transmitted in the seed in- 

 ternally, and it seems quite certain that they are 

 sufficient in their influence to account for most of 

 the causes of rapid first crop deterioration and 

 for the difficulties which farmers have in intro- 

 ducing any sort of culture, which will again raise 

 the standard of crops. Their exclusion, in so far as 

 it is perfectly or imperfectly done, is sufficient to 

 account for the anomalies in soil sterilization ex- 

 periments. 



From "Conservation of the Purity of 

 Soils in Cereal Cropping," October, 1910, 

 before Dry Land Congress, Spokane, in 

 Science, N. S., Vol. XXXII., No. 825 : 



I recommend both our trained agriculturists and 

 the farmer to look for help from a careful con- 

 sideration of soil sanitation. ... I consider it 

 particularly important that this question should be 

 brought before this congress, for this meeting is 

 located at a point west of the center of the last 

 great virgin soil areas of this country. And be- 

 cause, while I recognize the great good that is 

 done by the advocates of the conservation of the 

 chemical qualities of the soil and still remain a 

 strong advocate of the importance of that feature, 

 I feel that we have followed it so persistently as 

 to lose sight of other features which have vitiated 

 many of the conclusions which have been drawn. 

 . . . My belief is that we must yet he able to pro- 

 duce the bread of the world by the use of exten- 

 sive machinery and upon extensive plans, such as 

 are yet being carried on in the new lands of the 

 west. I have set forth the reasons why this can 

 not he done unless we recognize this question of 

 soil sanitation, or, if you will, the necessity of con- 

 serving the virgin purity of the land. I am, how- 

 ever, confident that with the proper understanding 

 of the methods which are now known for selecting 

 seed, disinfecting seed, rotating crops and perfect- 

 ing the seed bed there should be no necessity of 

 growing wheat upon the costly lands now under 



intensified farming systems, and that there is no 

 immediate necessity of abandoning the cropping to 

 cereals on the large plan which is characteristic of 

 the northwest. I believe firmly, however, if we do 

 not thus recognize this matter of the necessity of 

 soil sanitation and soU disinfection by means of 

 proper cultivation, and weU-planned series of crop 

 rotation, that, no matter how fertile the soil of one 

 of your western valleys may be, no distant year 

 will see your crop fall very close to the world aver- 

 age for that particular cereal. 



From "Cereal Cropping: Sanitation, A 

 New Basis for Crop Rotation, Manuring, 

 Tillage and Seed Selection," in Science, 

 N. S., Vol. XXXVIII., No. 973, 1913 : 



Deteriorated wheat, as seen in depressed yields 

 and low quality, as now quite commonly produced 

 in the great natural wheat-producing regions of 

 this country, is not, primarily, a matter of lost fer- 

 tility or of modified chemical content of the soil, 

 but is specifically a problem of soil and crop man- 

 agement. Crop rotation, for example, is not, pri- 

 marily a farm process which is likely to conserve 

 the fertility of the soil, but when properly ar- 

 ranged in a system so that the proper crops follow 

 one another, it is definitely a sanitary measure 

 tending to maximum production. . . . Wheat does 

 not do well in the presence of its own dead bodies, 

 not because of any changes which the wheat plants 

 have made in the content of the soil fertility, nor 

 because of any peculiar poisons (toxins) which the 

 crops may be thought to have introduced, but pri- 

 marily, because of infectious diseases which are 

 characteristic of the crop. . . . Proper methods of 

 soil tillage and handling of manures and artificial 

 fertilizers are not merely measures for supplying 

 plant food, but also involve vital features of a sani- 

 tary nature. . . . That there is a real problem be- 

 fore the agriculturists of the world, especially as 

 affecting the question of maintaining the output 

 . of wheat in amount and quality, all must agree. 

 The present approximate annual output of 700,- 

 000,000 bushels in its occurrence is somewhat 

 analogous to the varying annual output of gold. 

 It is maintained at these approximate figures, es- 

 sentially not through increased yields of grain of 

 better quality per acre on old cultivated areas 

 through certain exact methods, but rather through 

 the breaking up or turning over of new areas, in 

 the same wasteful methods. The most alarming 

 feature of the whole condition rests not so much 

 in these facts as in the evident rapid deterioration 

 of the quality of grain which invariably accom- 



