August 25, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



249 



The writer did not bring out the character- 

 istic differences in the cultural methods in 

 TOgue in the Cache Valley, Utah, as com- 

 pared with the cultural methods in vogue in 

 the Great Plains area. Neither did he bring 

 out the differences in cultural methods in 

 vogue in the Cache Valley, Utah, and in 

 Eussia. And why should he? He was writ- 

 ing of neither the soils and cultural methods 

 of the Great Plains area of the United States 

 nor of Russia. He was writing a preliminary 

 report of a purely local phase of the general 

 problem and in this connection he said: 

 " The data presented herein are very inter- 

 esting and instructive, but one must not 

 generalize too much from the limited amount 

 of information furnished. In studying the 

 results, the nature of the soil and cultural 

 methods of Cache Valley should be kept in 

 mind. . . . Such soils are ■probably not found 

 in any oilier extensive dry-farming district 

 outside of Utah." ' In the face of this state- 

 ment, it seems difficult to see how any one 

 could accuse the writer of attempting to apply 

 these results to the Great Plains area. 



The noted increase of nitrogen and humus 

 was not correlated with the yields of wheat 

 because the accurate yields of wheat were not 

 available. The writer felt that the reputed 

 yields of wheat, obtained from the average 

 farmer, whose only record was his memory 

 and who even had no accurate knowledge of 

 the acreage harvested each year, could have 

 but little if any scientific value. The writer 

 felt that a general statement that " Some of 

 the farms of this district have been under 

 cultivation for forty-five years and appar- 

 ently yield as good crops as they ever did " 

 was fully as valuable. He stiU feels that this 

 statement is as valuable as Scofield's* regard- 

 ing the yield of wheat in this same section, 

 wherein he says, " While actual comparison 

 is of course impossible, there are reasons for 

 believing that some of these fields are capable 

 of producing better crops now than when first 

 plowed." 



^ Utah Experiment Station, Bui. 109, p. 15. 

 * U. S. Dept. Agr., Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 Bulletin 103, p. 31. 



Since the report was only a preliminary 

 one and the investigation was being contin- 

 ued in the Juab Valley on the Nephi Experi- 

 mental Farm where the accurate record of 

 yields of wheat was available since the es- 

 tablishment of the farm on virgin sagebrush 

 soil, the writer felt that the noted increase of 

 nitrogen and humus could not but be of in- 

 terest to agronomists and agricultural chem- 

 ists in itseK, leaving to a future publication 

 the correlation of such an increase with the 

 accurate recorded yields of wheat or other 

 crops. 



The investigations on the Nephi Farm have 

 been completed and the results are given 

 herewith. The virgin soil was obtained at 

 the time of the location of the farm in 1903. 

 The samples of virgin soil are composites of 

 twenty-five separate borings on a forty acre 

 tract, so they fairly represent the composi- 

 tion of the soil of the farm in its virgin state. 



The samples from plots 82, 83 and 144 

 were obtained in 1910, seven years after com- 

 mencement of cultivation. Each sample is a 

 composite of two separate borings. 



TABLE I. NITROGEN, HUMUS AND OKGANIC CARBON 

 IN CULTIVATED' AND VIRGIN SOIL 



Besults reported as per cent, of dry soil 



The nitrogen and organic carbon have not 

 decreased in the cropped soil when compared 

 with the composition of the same soil in its 

 virgin state. The difference in results for 

 nitrogen in the cropped and virgin soil is 



° By method of Mooers and Hampton, Jr. Am. 

 Chem. Soc, 1908, Vol. 30, p. 805. 



° By method of Pettit and Schaub, Jr. Am. 

 Chem. Soc, 1904, Vol. 26, p. 1640. 



