40 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



or vital organs in the animal body. Phosphorus is another 

 element. There is not a living cell in either plant or animal 

 without phosphorus. Calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron 

 and sulphur are all essential for the production of crops, and 

 if any one of these elements is lacking, you cannot produce a 

 grain of v^heat, an ear of corn, or a spear of grass, so I think 

 we surely ought to know about these basic substances cut of 

 which our crops are made. Carbon, oxygen and hydrogen are 

 supplied by the air and water, and it so happens that the soil 

 furnishes iron and sulphur in abundance, but there are five ele- 

 ments which remain to be considered and to which man mu-t 

 give attention. You might say that God provides five of the 

 elements, one-half of the things out of which we make our 

 crops, and He has evidently left it for man to provide five, 

 so that man may labor together with God. 



The supply of nitrogen is in the air. Over every acre of 

 land there is enough nitrogen to produce loo bushels of corn a 

 year for 500,000 years. We don't need to buy nitrogen to grow 

 corn; it is in the air and there are certain plants that can get it 

 called legumes. All of those legume crops, if they hav^^. the 

 proper bacteria associated with them on their roots, have power 

 to get nitrogen from the air. These plants do not have the 

 power in themselves, it is only when they have the bacteria on 

 their roots, and if you are going to introduce a new kind of 

 legume crop, like alfalfa, then the importance of inoculation 

 comes in — we put in the bacteria that gives the plant that 

 power. If you raise as much as seven tons to the acre, given 

 that bacteria, alfalfa will consume 350 pounds of nitrogen dur- 

 ing the season. What do you suppose it would cost if you went to 

 buy it? Twenty cents a pound anyway, and there is fifty pounds 

 of nitrogen in a ton of alfalfa. You will see at once, if we can 

 raise legume crops we get free nitrogen in abundance, and we 

 can use our money to better advantage than buying nitrogen. 

 You may raise clover and feed it to dairy cows and another 

 man might feed it to beef animals, but don't think that another 

 man is a soil robber if he raises clover seed and sells it. Clover 

 and grass seeds are perhaps even better products to sell from 

 rhe farm than milk and meat. 



