ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 137 



tility. It is only when the furrows of the land complain, when 

 land sickness begins, that its proprietor calls for a physician; 

 and whether land health is to take the place of land sickness 

 depends on the wisdom of the physician and the willingness of 

 the farmer to follow his advice. 



Whatever may be said — and much can be said — to the credit 

 of the farmers of the ninetenth century, it cannot be said that 

 as a class they were sucessful in maintaining the fertility of 

 the soil and thus putting the nation on a permanent basis of en- 

 during prosperity ; for it should never be f rogotten that the abid- 

 ing prosperity of the United States depends not upon the number 

 of the population, nor the wealth of its cities, nor upon its mines, 

 be they ever so extensive or valuable, nor upon its manufac- 

 tures, nor upon the number and extent of its great railroad sys- 

 tems ; nor upon the resources of its trusts ; but upon the perman- 

 ency of the fertility of its soil. There is a ton less of gold, sil- 

 ver, iron, copper, stone, for ever ton mined ; and the Creator has 

 finished His work of storing these in the bowels of the earth, to 

 be discovered and utilized by man. He has not, however, finished 

 His work of creating the products of the soil from the raw ma- 

 terial of sunshine and shower, working through and with the 

 men who till it ; and it is upon this creative force that the future 

 prosperity of the United States must depend. 



If we inquire into the characteristics of the soil exhaustion 

 of which there is so wide and general complaint in all the older 

 states and in some of the newer, it will be found tat exhausted 

 soil universally lacks humus, that partially decomposed vegetable 

 matter for which the Almighty, in preparing the earth for the 

 home of man, so carefully provided by spreading the prairies each 

 fall with a carpet of dead grass and the forest floor with fallen 

 leaves. 



This humus being gradually wasted by constant cultivation 

 for a number of years without rotation, the soil loses its original 

 capacity for absorbing water in a wet time and holding it for 

 the use of plants during the periods of drouth. It no longer 

 separates the particles of soil in order to give full room for root 



