142 
while small birth weights were as uniformly unfavorable to good gains. If this fact 
should prove to be true under all conditions, then the birth weight of animals 
becomes an exceedingly important standard of measurement Any conditions or 
influences which tend to increase the birth weight of animals will have direct practi- 
cal value in indicating the possibility of vigorous development and early maturity. 
I have attempted in this paper to point out some of the problems of breeding, but 
particularly to indicate possible lines of experiments which may yield valuable 
results. It is not supposed that these arc the only feasible lines of investigation nor 
necessarily the best. But the importance of the subject of experiments in animal 
breeding makes it obligatory on the experiment-station investigators to carry on 
investigations which may result in permanent value to the breeders of domestic 
animals. 
Soil Fertility. 
H. W. Wiley, of the Bureau of Chemistry, U. 8. Department of Agriculture, spoke 
as follows: 
Mr. Pkesidext, Ladies, and Gentlemen: For the vice-presidential address before 
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Buffalo in 1886, I took 
as a subject "The Economical Aspects of Agricultural Chemistry." The object of 
that address was to show what the crops of the United States took from the soil and 
what they owed to it in order to balance the account. Again, as president of the 
American Chemical Society in 1893, in an address on ''The Waste and Conservation 
of Plant Food," the very theme was considered which lias been discussed here this 
afternoon. These addresses need not be summarized, as they are accessible in the 
published proceedings of the associations named. In the opening paragraph of my 
work on soil analysis it is stated that the soil ''consists chiefly of mineral substances, 
together with some products of organic life and of certain living organisms." It is 
ten years since that sentence was written, and the more thought I give to the ques- 
tion the more I am convinced it is true that the soil is a living organism and that 
it deserves the same consideration at the hands of the farmer that any other living 
creature receives. That is, if the soil is to be considered not as a dead body, but as a 
living organism, it is entitled to kindness, fair treatment, and proper nutrition. We 
know well the principles of pig feeding, and from them we get to some extent the 
fundamental principles of man feeding. Johnson has told us how plants feed and 
how crops grow, and we are now beginning to understand some of the principles of 
soil feeding. As our investigations go on these principles will become more clear, 
and we shall know how to keep our soils in good condition. 
In one of the addresses referred to I said that up to that time there had been but 
little scientific agriculture in the United States, and I believe that statement to be 
true. This is a severe accusation to make against the scientific agriculturist of the 
country, but if you will study the history of our soils and see how they have been 
treated, if you will note their former condition and their present condition I think 
you will agree with me. 
Why is it that the wheat crop of the United States averages only 13 bushels per 
acre, while that of Fiance averages 27 bushels per acre, and that of some other coun- 
tries still higher? Is this because the other countries have better soils to begin with, 
oris it because their soils have better treatment and the agriculturists take better 
care of them? The soils there have been in cultivation two thousand years, as we 
know, and probably a great deal longer, yet our soils, so far as this leading grain is 
concerned, have been in cultivation — some of them — not more than ten or fifteen 
years. 
There must be some reason for this difference. You know the principles of exten- 
sive agriculture. The great West, the central West, will show you what is done in 
this respect. 1 have had some experience there myself as a farmer; I know the 
habits of the farmers. I have seen hundreds of stables built of rails, so when the 
manure got so high that the cattle could no longer get into them the stables could 
be moved. Any of you who have lived in the West have seen instances of that kind. 
I have seen fields year after year raked and scraped, and then fires built to get rid of 
the ''trash" on top, so that cultivation might he the more easy. In this way the 
soil is robbed, not only of crops, but of remnants of crops, by the rapacious farmer, 
and it is no wonder that our soils have been so reduced in fertility. They have the 
same appearance as compared with a well-cared-for soil that a starved horse has in 
comparison with a well-fed one; the two occupy about the same relation. And the 
same principle which, if followed, will keep a horse in good condition will, if applied 
to a soil, keei) it in good condition. 
