142 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



ability many of them will continue to insist that this is all-suf- 

 ficient, until failing yields, and the immense multiplication of 

 insect pests, and the invasion of noxious weeds, force them too 

 late to adopt a policy which, if adopted in time, might have 

 brought them wealth and comfort instead of adversity and 

 grief. 



The craze for extensive rather than intensive farming has 

 been with us , lo! these many years. The twentieth century 

 will demand and enforce intensive farming. By intensive farm- 

 ing I do not mean necessarily farming on a small scale, nor pro- 

 ducing the greatest amount of crop per acre regardless of either 

 expense or profit; nor does intensive farming necessarily exclude 

 extensive farming. There will be large farms in the twentieth 

 century. They will not be farmed on the methods which most 

 farms have been conducted in the century preceding, howeve- , 

 but with the object of producing the maximum of crop con- 

 sistent with the maximum of profit. In other words, we shall no 

 longer farm the upper four inches of the soil "with a lick and a 

 promise," (to use an expression common in my boyhood days), 

 but will take the entire soil and subsoil within reach of the 

 plant roots either directly or indirectly tributary to plant produc- 

 tion. 



This means deeper plowing, as conditions and circumstances 

 may require. It means above all else more thorough cultivation 

 both of land in tillage and in pasture. It means great improve- 

 ment in the agricultural machinery, and greater skill and in- 

 telligence in operating that machinery. Many of the types of 

 machines approved at the beginning of the twentieth century will 

 be put in the junk pile before the first quarter of tie centu'*y 

 is past. It means heavier and better horses. We are just begin- 

 ning :o understand the philosophy of soil tillage and the neces- 

 sity of vastly increasing the area through which plant roots 

 can forage. 



It need scarcely be said that there must o^ iiecessity be 

 a very considerable increase in the numbers, in the quality, and 

 in the value of the livestock on western farms during the twenti-- 

 eth century. Influences are now at work which will force Ameri- 



