FORTY-FIRST ANNUAL CONVENTION 57 



we got an increase of .3 bushel. Potassium is needed more 

 than phosphorus on that land, but it did not pay its cost. 



I have here the results of 12 years of tests in McLean* 

 County in the $200 corn belt land, as we used to say. I suppose 

 we will have to use a higher figure now. That is a I soil that 

 carries 36,000 pounds of potassium per acre and less than 1,200 

 pounds of phosphorus per acre. We applied phosphorus and 

 potassium and spent as much for one as for the other, and as 

 an average of all the corn crops during 12 years, six corn crops, 

 we got 1 7.1 more bushels of corn per acre for the phosphorus, 

 and 2.7 bushels for the potassium. Phosphorus increased the 

 yield of oats by 15 bushels, while potassium decreased the yield 

 by 2.3 bushels. We got 2.01 tons more clover hay where 'the 

 phosphorus was used. It is almost impossible to believe, yet 

 that was the average result. Hundreds of people about Bloom- 

 ington and in the vicinity saw the fields, and you can go and 

 see the crops again this coming season. Where potassium was 

 used the clover was decreased by 70 pounds. This was the av- 

 erage of six different trials. Potassium increased the yield of 

 wheat by .1 of one bushel per acre, and it cost just as much as 

 the phosphorus, which increased the wheat 24.1 bushels per acre. 



I have the results of 19 14 from the growing of whea^ 

 down in Southern Illinois on three different fields in operation 

 four or five years. We had two systems of farming running 

 upon those experiment fields, one a live-stock system, where we 

 returned to the soil as much manure as could be made from the 

 crops grown. We have no experiments going where we apply 

 ten tons every so often, because we are not sure we could make 

 ten tons out of the crops grown. At Rothamsted, England, they 

 applied 15.7 tons per acre each year, and have done so for more 

 than sixty years. They have thus secured much valuable in- 

 formation, but they could not begin to make it out of the crops, 

 and it seems to us a practical method is to put it on in propor- 

 tion to what the farmer can make. It is not practical for a 

 farmer of Illinois to haul manure from any other place. A few- 

 market gardeners could do it, but the average farmer cannot. 



In Franklin County we had the following results. Without 

 any treatment of the soil wheat was a failure, 1.7 bushels pei 



