62 
Annual Report of the 
allow one-half of that difference for difference in soil, we still have 
over twenty-five per cent, in the average yield in favor of the super¬ 
ior or soil-compensating system. 
If we take the year 1869, as included in the census of 1870, as 
our basis, twenty-five per cent, added to the 25,600,000 bushels of 
wheat reported, would have added 6,400,000 bushels to the crop of 
wheat in a single year, and this at one dollar per bushel would 
have added $6,400,000 to the productive industry of the state. As 
the greater the yield, the less cost of production per bushel, so at 
least half that sum, or $3,200,000, would have- been added to th& 
farmers’ profits from this soil-corn pen satin q system from this one 
crop in a single year. And if we apply this same principle to the 
15,000,000 bushels of corn grown in that year, and the 20,000,000 
bushels of oats, with the 3,000,000 bushels of barley and rye, we 
shall have a grand total that will show the difference in a single 
year between the exhausting and the soil-compensating systems, 
on the cereals alone. 
As less than one-third of the cultivated land was in wheat in 
1869, it would be safe to put the net profits of such improvement 
on all crops in the state at seven millions of dollars, or, in other 
words, equal to adding one hundred millions of dollars to the value 
of the farming lands of the state, at seven per cent, interest, and it 
will not alter the conditions of the problem materially, that in order 
to produce this result we should have applied a part of the land to 
keeping stock instead of growing wheat. Neither does the soil- 
compensating system stop here, for it is even now marked in the 
production of grain. And the more stock your land can carry well, 
the more manure for the soil and the greater your crops of grain 
and grass in return. 
Let me impress upon your minds the liberal use of clover; and do 
not be afraid to use from seventy-five to one hundred pounds of 
plaster yearly, or once in two years, on every acre of clover you 
grow on clay or sandy soil, 
A Wisconsin farmer, who farmed it on the exhaustive plan, pro¬ 
ducing but little manure and keeping but little stock, on a clay 
soil, complained that the drought of the summer and cold of win¬ 
ter killed his clover and he “could not grow grass,” so he sold his 
farm and “went west.” The purchaser, with deep plowing and an 
application of eight loads of sheep manure to the acre, produced a 
