2 4 8 



ment just advanced. The Mississippi valley was not broad 

 enough or deep enough to stay the progress of this soil ex- 

 haustion, and the fertile valley of the Red river of the North, or 

 the broad plains of the far west will be no less powerless under 

 the practices always, and perhaps necessarily, prevalent on 

 pioneer farms. 



The practice of " robbing the mine," as it were, has been 

 almost universally acknowledged, but the farmers of the west 

 have, as a rule, remained heedless of its results, as long as the 

 soil yielded plentifully enough to meet a demand, or until stern 

 necessity forced a halt. And now there comes from many parts 

 of our own state an earnest cry, "What shall we do to be 

 saved from this ruinous spoliation? How may the lost fertility 

 be restored? What may we apply to the soil in order that it 

 may be enabled to give its accustomed yield? " To some these 

 questions are all important now. They must surely become so 

 to all. 



To answer these great questions we enter first upon the 

 work of the great chemical laboratory of the farm. That 

 work, applied to a study of the soil and of the crop produced 

 from it has shown if it were necessary to go into the market 

 and buy the plant food removed from the farms of Illinois by 

 the crops of a single year the enormous sum of $86,079,356 

 would be required. This is some of the money our cynical 

 friend remarked the farmer was trying to make. 



The questions now naturally arising are, " What are the 

 substances which are worth so much? In what amounts and 

 in what condition are they ordinarily found in the soil? Why 

 should they be so rapidly used up? How can their absence in 

 the soil be determined, and what can be used to restore them 

 to the soil?" These are the questions for which you must turn 

 to chemistry for an answer, and which experiment in the farm 

 laboratory must work out. 



Among all the substances needed by the crop in its develop- 

 ment, nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, are the most 

 important. What they are may be best explained to those who 



