THE BROADBALK WHEAT soils. 
95 
tioM. Under some circumstances t lie diminution may be hastened, 
while Id other circumstances it may be retarded by the use of mineral 
fertilizers, which, happily, are cheap as well as abundant. But on 
almost any land, when the (dement of rent or the saving of mere land 
area becomes an object, as well as the Baying of labor, the time must 
bome sooner or later when continuous wheal growing can not be con- 
ducted on primitive methods. First comes improved cultivation, 
then the use of mineral fertilizers, ami next the use of external sup- 
pliesof nitrogen. With such aid, however, continuous wheal grow- 
ing can be carried on probably forever, on any reasonably good and 
well-conditioned soil, provided that weeds can be kept under. But 
Only a port ion of i lie purchased nil rogen returns to us in the produce, 
and we must add more than the Crop requires Or can assimilate, if the 
land is to give iis besi and most abundant yield. The balance is lost. 
In ultimate economics there must be, therefore, agriculturally, a 
waste of nitrogen in continuous wheat growing, and the more highly 
we farm the greater Ihe waste. But there may be in agriculture, as 
in many other matters, an immediate economical advantage in an 
ultimate economic waste. The wheat grower, very naturally, does 
not consider a far remote posterity, but considers the most profitable 
way of producing his crop for the present and in the reasonably near 
future. A settler in a new country first plows up a section of prairie 
with its accumulated nitrogenous fertility, and he grows wheat on it 
till nature, Libera] at first, becomes parsimonious. Then he has to 
Cultivate better and keep his ground cleaner, and after a time he has 
to invest a small quantity of capital in phosphates, and perhaps in 
potasli >alt>. and after a further t ime BOme nit rogen also must be pur- 
i based ; and- the Question becomes, How much and in w hat form can 
it best be bought / In crowded countries or states, where a demand 
is iicai- at hand, not only for wheat, but for meat and milk and hides 
and horses and wool and vegetables, rotation farming and grazing 
boon supersede continuous wheat growing and combine to conserve 
natural fertility. I have been somewhat surprised to Learn how Largely 
even the most intensive form of farming, involving the systematic 
jpowt.h of catch crops on what would once have been fallows, has 
already become established in some of the Eastern States of America. 
At the same time the reliance on mere rotation of crops and the inci- 
dental farming operat ions thereby entailed, without help from pur- 
chased manures or (which is a form of the same thing) purchased 
food, necessarily restricts the work of the farmer and Limits the quan- 
tity and nature of the material he sells. The difficulty of conserving 
the fertility of the soil otherwise than by rotation farming before the 
days of purchased farm foods and purchased fertilizers was such that, 
as many of you may know, the rotations of crops were laid down for 
English farmers in their farm Leases, and a tenant farmer were allowed 
to sell neit her hay nor straw. Science has, however, changed all this, 
and a farmer in England can now usually grow whatever he pleases. 
