454 
STATE AGEICLUTUKAL SOCIETY. 
In England you find roots and other crops in rotation, covering half the 
arable soil, and the small wheat fields, kept rich by this skillful management, 
yield heavily. With us no such variety of crops, and less wheat on two acres 
than on one over the ocean. In New England we find excellent farming 
and poor land growing richer, because the market is near and excellent. 
J. H. Klippart, Secretary of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture, said in 
1860 : “ Several years ago I became aware of the fact that wheat—the sta. 
pie of Ohio—was annually diminishing its yield ; that in less than fifty years 
the average product was reduced from thirty to less than fifteen bushels per 
acre. I also learned that in Great Britain the yield, in the same time, had 
increased from sixteen to thirty-six blishels per acre. Portions of New York 
that formerly produced thirty bushels, now seldom average over eight; and 
Ohio, with her virgin soil, is reduced to thirteen. Unless our farmers soon 
turn their attention to renovation, even Ohio will soon he among the non-pro¬ 
ducing wheat lands. ’ ’ 
Wisconsin will follow the same dismal path, unless there be a change, and 
only the building up of manufactures can avert this calamity. 
Mr. Klippart says of the former wheat lands of New York, Maryland, Vir¬ 
ginia and Delaware: 
“Exhaustion is written all over them in language too plain to be misunder¬ 
stood.” 
Facts may be given in regard to the yield of cotton corn and tobacco, all 
with the same pitiful result. The reason is simple enough. 
Constant exportation of wheat, or any product, exhausts the soil of the 
constituents necessary for the growth of that product, with no device by 
which they are returned to the soil. In a paper read before the Geographi¬ 
cal Society of New York, by Mr. Waring, he says: 
“ In my opinion it would be improper to estimate the total annual wastes 
of the country at less than equal to the mineral constituents oififteen hundred 
million bushels of corn- To suppose this can continue, and we can remain 
prosperous, is simply ridiculous. As yet we have much virgin soil, and it will 
be long ere we reap the full fruits of our improvidence, but it is merely a 
question of time. With our earth butchery and prodigality we are each year 
losing the intrinsic essence of our vitality.” 
These are grave truths, and, “ forewarned, forearmed,” is a good motto for 
us, before our-yet new soil is exhausted. You may truly say that better farm 
ing would lessen this waste, but you look in vain for this better farming, save 
where the factory and farm are neighbors. Diversified industry is the reme¬ 
dy. Much attention has been paid to cheaper transportation to the sea¬ 
board, and I have read with interest the proceedings of farmers’ meetings for 
that purpose in Illinois and this State. All proper and important, and worthy 
of just success, but I have greatly wished that the increasing of the home 
market had claimed equally intelligent thought and discussion, for the one 
but alleviates a chronic complaint, the other cures the disorder. 
