October, 1909,] 



Miscellaneous, 



biggest and the most serious question 

 now confronting the American people — 

 and it is bound to remain the big prob- 

 lem for mauy years to come. I am so 

 sure of this, and feel so deeply on this 

 matter, that I have determined to devote 

 the remaining years of my life to doing 

 all 1 can to arouse the farmers of this 

 country to the fact that, if they go on 

 taking everything they can out of the 

 soil and putting next to nothing back, 

 they are in the position of deliberately 

 and knowingly creating a hopeless run 

 on the greatest and richest bank in 

 the world — the marvellous soil of the 

 United States— a run which can result 

 only in wreck and disaster as wide as 

 the country. 



This is the dark side of the picture, 

 the thing which will surely happen if 

 we do not wake up and give the soil a 

 square deal. There is another side to 

 the problem as bright as this one is 

 dark — a reward for well doing just as 

 great in proportion as the punishment 

 for wrong-doing. If only twenty-five 

 per cent, of the farmers of this country 

 would wake up to the situation and do 

 their level best in giving the soil a 

 square deal, they would not only save 

 the absolute loss of millions of dollars, 

 but they would make millions more — and 

 make themselves rich in the bargain. 

 Unless there is a general and widespread 

 reform in this matter of the mistreat- 

 ment of our soil we are going literally 

 to put millions of acres of good land out 

 of business. All we have to do, to cut 

 out of our national wealth land enough 

 to make a dozen European kingdoms, is 

 to keep right on doing what we are 

 doing, and what we have been doing 

 ever since the first reaper and binder 

 was put into the field. In the matter of 

 soil depletion the farmers of this country 

 have been going the pace that kills — that 

 kills land and robs the nation of a yearly 

 power to produce a volume of wealth 

 almost beyond the power of the average 

 man to understand. 



This problem is not a theory with me ; 

 I haven't come at it from the theoretical 

 side. To the contrary. I have bumped 

 against it from the practical, the active 

 side. I did not leave the farm until I 

 was twenty-six years old, and there 

 hasn't been a year of my life since when 

 I haven't been in some kind of business 

 which was close to the soil. And for 

 many years I have owned and operated 

 several thousands of acres of farm land— 

 and do so now. And 1 may add that I 

 have not a single farm which I have not 

 made to pay a good and satisfactory 

 percentage on the investment year after 

 year. I say this simply because the 



farmers do not take kindly to advice 

 from mere theorists ; they naturally 

 wish to know that advice comes from a 

 practical and successful farmer before 

 they attach enough importance to it to 

 act upon it. This is right and natural, 

 and it is because I am so anxious to have 

 them give to my plea the weight which 

 it deserves that I say to them : I am 

 entitled to talk about farming because 

 I was brought up on a farm, and operated 

 several thousand acres of farm land, 

 divided into farms of 160 acres each, in a 

 way which makes them pay me a hand- 

 some profit. 



BUILDING UP THE LAND. 



Right from the start I made up my 

 mind to buy good farms and keep them 

 and run them for profit. This meant 

 that I looked at them as a long-time 

 investment, not as something on which 

 to speculate or make a quick turn. In 

 other words, the task before me was 

 that of building up and making the 

 farms better each year, stronger in their 

 ability to produce profitable crops. How 

 many farmers treat their land in this 

 way *? Fewer, by far, than you would sup- 

 pose ! Of course, most of them intend to 

 do this — but there is a wide gap between 

 their intentions and their practice. It 

 is no exaggeration to say that the majo- 

 rity of farmers in this country are living 

 on their "principal" instead of their 

 " interest," so far as their treatment of 

 their soil is concerned : they are raising 

 fair to excellent crops, putting up good 

 buildings and making, perhaps, a fine 

 showing on the profit side of the ledger, 

 but in doing this they are literally bank- 

 rupting the soil — robbing it of the capa- 

 city to keep up the pace of production 

 in the future. 



In any state of the Union, from the 

 richest to the poorest, the casual observer 

 can see for himself how the soil is being 

 bankrupted by heavy cropping and poor 

 fertilization. There are large tracts in 

 Virginia, for example, where farm after 

 farm can be bought at an almost absurd 

 price. Not vety long ago these same 

 acres were the pride of the Old Dominion 

 state and produced fortunes to their 

 owners in their unfailiug tobacco crops. 

 Now they are next door to useless as 

 tillable land and about all their value is 

 in the way of fine scenery. They have 

 been depleted by taking from them the 

 elements required to grow crops, while 

 comparatively nothing has been put 

 back into them to prevent bankruptcy. 

 The same thing can be seen in Southern 

 Illinois, where there are large districts 

 which produce scant crops and where 

 farms can be bought at one-third— even 

 a fourth— of the pi ice of good farm lands 



