PERCY found Leonardtown almost in the center of St. Mary county, situated on Breton bay, an arm of the lower Potomac.
From the data recorded on the back of his map of Maryland, Percy noted that a population of four hundred and fifty-four found support in this old county seat, according to the census of I 900. After spending the day in the country, he found himself wondering how even that number of people could be supported, and then remembered that there is one industry of some importance in the United States which exists independent of agriculture, an industry which preceded agriculture, and which evidently has also succeeded agriculture to a very considerable extent in some places; namely, fishing.
"Clams, oysters and fish, and in this order," he said to himself, "apparently constitute the means of support for some of these people."
And yet the country was not depopulated, although very much of the arable land was abandoned for agricultural purposes. A farm of a hundred acres might have ten acres under cultivation, this being as much as the farmer could "keep up," as was commonly stated. This meant that all of the farm manure and other refuse that could be secured from the entire farm or hauled from the village, together with what commercial fertilizer the farmer was able to buy, would not enable him to keep more than ten acres of land in a state of productiveness that justified its cultivation. Tobacco, corn, wheat and cowpeas were the principal crops. Corn was the principal article of food, with wheat bread more or less common. The cowpeas and corn fodder usually kept one or more cows through the winter when they could not secure a living in the brush. Tobacco, the principal "money crop," was depended on to buy clothing, and "groceries," which included more or less fish and pork, although some farmers "raised their own meat," in part by fattening hogs on the acorns that fell in the autumn from the scrub oak trees.
One farm of one hundred and ninety acres owned by an old lady, who lived in the nearby country village was rented for $100 a year, which amounted to about fifty-two and one-half cents an acres as the gross income to the landowner. After the taxes were paid, about thirty cents an acre remained for repairs on buildings and fences and interest on the investment.
Percy spent some time on a five hundred acre farm belonging to an old gentleman who still gave his name as F. Allerton Jones, a man whose father had been prominent in the community. According to the county soil map which had been presented to Percy by the Bureau of Soils, the soil of this farm was all Leonardtown loam, except about forty acres which occupied the sides of a narrow valley a bend of which cut the farm on the south side.
"My father had this whole farm under cultivation," said Mr. Jones, "except the hillsides. But what's the use? We get along with a good deal less work, and I've found it better to cultivate less ground during the forty odd years I've had to meet the bills. But I've kept up more of my land than most of my neighbors. I reckon I've got about eighty acres of good cleared land yet on this farm, and the leaves and pine needles we rake up where the trees grow on the old fields make a good fertilizer for the land we aim to cultivate, and I get a good many loads of manure from friends who live in the village and keep a cow or a horse.
"The last crop I raised on that east field, where you see those scrub pines, was in 1881. I finished cultivating corn there the day I heard about President Garfield being shot; and it was a mighty hot July day too. My neighbor, Seth Whitmore, who died about ten years ago, came along from the village and waited for me to come to the end of the row down by the road and he told me that Garfield was shot. We both allowed the corn would be a pretty fair crop and when I gathered the fodder that fall there was a right smart of a corn crop. Yes, Sir, it's pretty good land, but we don't need much corn, no how, and we can make more money out of tobacco. Of course it takes lots of manure and fertilizer to grow a good patch of tobacco, but good tobacco always brings good money."
"About how much money do you get for an acre of tobacco?" askedPercy.
"That varies a lot with the quality and price—sometimes $100—sometimes $300, when the trust don't hold the price down on us. We can raise good tobacco and good tobacco brings us good money. We can always manure an acre or two for tobacco and get our groceries and some clothes now and then, and that's about all anybody gets in this world, I reckon. But taxes are mighty high, I tell you. About $75 to $80 I have to pay. Are taxes high out West?"
"We pay about forty to fifty cents an acre in the corn belt," Percy replied; "but, in a course I took in economics, I learned that the taxes do not vary in proportion to land values. Poor lands, if inhabited, must always pay heavy taxes; whereas, large areas of good land carry lighter taxes compared with their earning capacity. You must provide your regular expenses for county officers, county courthouse, jail, and poorhouse, about the same as we do. Your roads and bridges cost as much as ours; and the schools in the South must cost more than ours, for a complete double system of schools is usually provided.
"But did you say that you paid fifty cents an acre in taxes?" askedMr. Jones.
"Yes, about that, in the corn belt," replied Percy, "but not so much in Southern Illinois where the land is poor. I think the farmers in that section pay taxes as low as yours. Perhaps twenty cents an acre."
"Do you mean to say that you have poor land in Illinois?"
"Yes, the common prairie land of Southern Illinois must be called poor as compared with the corn belt land. There is a good deal of land in Southern Illinois that was put under cultivation before 1820, and eighty crops must have made a heavy draft upon the store of plant food originally contained in those soils."
"Only since 1820? Why, we began to till the soil right here, Young Man, in St. Mary County, in 1634 and don't you know, Sir, that we had a rebellion here as early as 1645? Yes, Sir, that was one hundred and seventy-five years before 1820. So you've raised only eighty crops and the land is already getting poor, and we've raised two hundred and fifty crops—well, maybe, not quite so many, for we've been giving our land a good deal of rest for the last fifty or sixty years; but my grandfather used to raise twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre with the help of a hundred pounds of land-plaster, and I've no doubt I could do it again today if I cared to raise wheat, but one acre of tobacco is worth ten of wheat, so why should I bother with wheat?"
"Twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre," repeated Percy, half to himself. "The total supply of phosphorus still remaining in the plowed soil would be sufficient for only twenty more crops like that. Two hundred years of such crops would require 1600 pounds of phosphorus, making nearly 1800 pounds at the beginning, if it all came from the plowed soil. That is one and a half times as much as is now contained in our common corn belt prairie land."
"More stuff in our land than in yours, did you say?" questioned the old man. "I told you we had pretty good soil here, but I've always allowed your soil was better, but maybe not. I tell you manure lasts on this land. You can see where you put it for nigh twenty years. Then we rest our land some and that helps a sight, and if the price stays up we make good money on tobacco. I'm sorry your land is getting so poor out West, especially if you can't raise tobacco. Ever tried tobacco, Young Man?—gosh, but you remind me of one of them Government fellows who came driving along here once when Bob and his brothers were plowing corn right here about three years ago. Bob's my tenant's nigger, and he ain't no fool either, even if he is colored; but then, to tell the truth, he ain't much colored. Well, I was sitting under a tree right here smoking and keeping an eye on the niggers unbeknownst to them when one of them Government fellows stopped his horse as Bob was turning the end, and says he to Bob:
"'Your corn seems to be looking mighty yellow?'
"'Yes, suh,' says Bob. 'Yes, suh, we done planted yellow corn.'
"'Well, I mean it looks as though you won't get more than half a crop,' says he.
"'I reckon not,' says Bob. 'The landlord, he done gets the other half.'
"With that the fellow says to Bob:
"'It seems to me you're mighty near a fool.'
"'Yes, suh,' says Bob, 'and I'm mighty feared I'll catch it if I don't get a goin'.'
"The fellow just gave his horse a cut and drove on, but I liked to died. He'd been here two or three times pestering me with questions about raising tobacco. Say, you ain't one of them Government fellows, are you? They were travelling all around over this county three years ago, learning how we raised tobacco and all kinds of crops. They had augers and said they were investigating soils, but I never heard nothing of 'em since. Have you got an auger to investigate soils with?"
Percy was compelled to admit that he had an auger and that he was trying to learn all he could about the soil.
He had driven to Mr. Jones' farm because his land happened to be situated in a large area of Leonardtown loam, and he felt free to stop and talk with him because he had found him leaning against the fence, smoking a cob pipe, apparently trying to decide what to do with some small shocks of corn scattered over a field of about fifteen acres.
Percy stepped to the buggy and drew out his soil auger, then returned to the corn field and begun to bore a hole near where Mr. Jones was standing.
"That's the thing," said he, "the same kind of an auger them fellows had three years ago. Still boring holes, are you? Want to bore around over my farm again, do you?"
Percy replied that he would be glad to make borings in several places in order that he might see about what the soil and subsoil were like in that kind of land.
"That's all right, Young Man. Just bore as many holes as you please. I suppose you'd rather do that than work; but you'll have to excuse me. I've got a lot to do today, and it's already getting late. I can't take time again to tell you fellows how to raise tobacco. Good day."
THE old man had stuck his cob pipe in a pocket and filled his mouth with a chew of tobacco.
He walked by Percy's buggy with the tobacco juice drizzling from the corners of his mouth, and turned down the road toward the house.
Percy finished boring the hole and then returned to the buggy.
"Christ, that old man eats tobacco like a beast!" exclaimed the driver as Percy approached.
"Are you speaking to me?" asked Percy.
"Why, certainly."
"That is not my name, please," admonished Percy, "but I can tell you that I know Him well and that He is my best friend."
"What, old Al Jones?"
"No,—Christ," replied Percy, with a grieved expression plainly discernible.
"Oh," said the driver.
They drove past the Jones residence and out into the field beyond. The house one might have thought deserted except for the well-beaten paths and the presence of chickens in the yard. It was a large structure with two and a half stories. The cornice and window trimmings revealed the beauty and wealth of former days. Rare shrubs still grew in the spacious front yard, and gnarled remnants of orchard trees were to be seen in the rear. A dozen other buildings, large and small, occupied the background, some with the roofs partly fallen, others evidently still in use.
"How old do you suppose these buildings are?" asked Percy of the driver.
"About a hundred years," he replied, "and I reckon they've had no paint nor fixin' since they was built, 'cept they have to give some of 'em new shingles now and then or they'd all fall to pieces like the old barns back yonder."
Percy examined the soil in several places on the Jones farm and on other farms in the neighborhood. They lunched on crackers and canned beans at a country store and made a more extended drive in the afternoon.
"It is a fine soil," Percy said to the driver, as they started for Leonardtown. "It contains enough sand for easy tillage and quick drainage, and enough clay to hold anything that might be applied to it."
"That's right," said the driver. "Where they put plenty of manure and fertilizer they raise tobacco three foot high and fifteen hundred pounds to the acre, but where they run the tobacco rows beyond the manured land so's to be sure and not lose any manure, why the stuff won't grow six inches high and it just turns yellow and seems to dry up, no matter if it rains every day. Say, Mister, would you mind telling me if you're a preacher?"
"Oh, no," replied Percy, "—I am not a preacher, any more than everyChristian must be loyal to the name."
"Well, anyway, I've learned a lesson I'll try to remember. I never thought before about how it might hurt other people when I swear. I don't mean nothing by it. It's just a habit; but your saying Christ is your friend makes me feel that I have no business talking about anybody's friend, any more than I'd like to hear anybody else use my mother's name as a by-word. I reckon nobody has any right to use Christ's name 'cept Christians or them as wants to be Christians. I reckon we'd never heard the name if it hadn't a been for the Christians.
"But I don't have so many bad habits. I don't drink, nor smoke, nor chew; and I don't want to. My father smoked some and chewed a lot, and I know the smell of tobacco used to make my mother about as sick as she could be; but she had to stand it, or at least she did stand it till father died; and now she lives with me, and I'm mighty glad she don't have to smell no more tobacco
"She often speaks of it—mother does; and she says she's so thankful she's got a boy that don't use tobacco. She says men that use tobacco don't know how bad it is for other folks to smell 'em. Why, sometimes I come home when I've just been driving a man some place in the country, riding along like you and I are now, and he a smoking or chewing, or at least his clothes soaked full of the vile odor; and when I get home mother says, 'My! but you must have had an old stink pot along with you to-day.' She can smell it on my clothes, and I just hang my coat out in the shed till the scent gets off from it.
"No, Sir, I don't want any tobacco for me, and I don't know as I'd care to raise the stuff for other folks to saturate themselves with either; and every kid is allowed to use it nowadays, or at least most of them get it. It's easy enough to get it. Why, a kid can't keep away from getting these cigarettes, if he tries. They're everywhere. Every kid has hip pockets full; and I know blamed well that some smoke so many cigarettes they get so they aren't more than half bright. It's a fact, Sir,—plenty of 'em too; and some old men, like Al Jones, are just so soaked in tobacco they seem about half dead. Course it ain't like whiskey, but I think it's worse than beer if beer didn't make one want whiskey later.
"But as I was saying, I feel that I have no business saying things about,—about anybody you call your friend, and I think I'll just swear off swearing, if I can."
"You can if you will just let Him be your friend."
"Well, I don't know much about that," was the slow reply. "That takes faith, and I don't have much faith in some of the church members I know."
"That used to trouble me also," said Percy, "until one time the thought impressed itself upon me that even Christ himself did all His great work with one of the twelve a traitor; and this thought always comes to me now when self-respecting men object to uniting with organized Christianity because of those who may be regarded as traitors or hypocrites, but not of such flagrant character as to insure expulsion from the Church?"
"Do you believe in miracles?" asked the driver.
"Oh, yes," said Percy, "in such miracles as the growth of the corn plant."
"Why, that isn't any miracle. Everybody understands all about that."
"Not everybody," replied Percy. "There is only One who understands it. There is only one great miracle, and that is the miracle of life. It is said that men adulterate coffee, even to the extent of making the bean or berry so nearly like the natural that it requires an expert to detect the fraud; but do you think an imitation seed would grow?"
"No, it wouldn't grow," said the driver.
"Not only that," said Percy, "but we may have a natural and perfect grain of corn and it can never be made to grow by any or all of the knowledge and skill of men, if for a single instant the life principle has left the kernel, which may easily result by changing its temperature a few degrees above or below the usual range. The spark of life returns to God who gave it, and man is as helpless to restore it as when he first walked the earth.
"What miracle do you find hard to accept?" asked Percy.
"How could Jesus know that Lazarus had died when he was on the other side of the mountain?"
"I don't know," Percy replied; "perhaps by some sort of wireless message which his soul could receive. I don't know how, but it was no greater miracle than it would have been then to have done what I did last week."
The driver turned to look squarely at Percy as though in doubt of his sanity, but a kindly smile reassured him.
"Our train coming into Cincinnati ran in two sections," Percy continued, "and the section behind us was wrecked, three travellers being killed and about fifteen others wounded. I was sure my mother would hear of the wreck before I could reach her with a letter, and so I talked with her from Cincinnati over the long distance 'phone, with which we have always had connection since I first went away to college. Yes, I talked with her, and, though separated by a distance three times the entire length of Palestine, I distinctly heard and recognized my mother's voice. Oh, yes, I believe in miracles; but that is a matter of small consequence. The important thing is that we have faith in God and faith in Jesus Christ, his Son."
"Well, that's what troubles me," said the driver. "How's one to get faith?"
"There are two methods of receiving faith," replied Percy. "Faith cometh by prayer." "Yes, Sir, I believe that." "And, faith cometh by hearing." "Hearing what?" "Hearing by the Word of God; hearing those who have studied His Word and who testify of Him; and hearing with an ear ready to receive the truth."
TWO days later Percy was in Rhode Island visiting a farm owned by Samuel Robbins, one of the most progressive and successful farmers of that State.
Mr. Robbins' farm lay in what appeared to be an ancient valley, several miles in width, although only a small stream now winds through it to the sea seven miles away.
"So you are from Illinois," said Mr. Robbins, after Percy had introduced himself and explained the nature of his visit. "The papers have a good deal to say about the corn you grow in Illinois; but have you noticed that the Government reports show our average yield of corn in New England is higher than yours in Illinois?"
"Yes, Sir," Percy replied, "I have noticed that and I have come to Rhode Island to learn how to raise more corn per acre. I have noticed, however, that New England corn does not occupy a large acreage."
Well, now, we count corn as one of our big crops, next to hay.You'll see plenty of corn fields right here in Rhode Island."
"Would you believe that we actually raise more corn on one farm inIllinois than the total corn crop of Rhode Island?"
"You don't tell!"
"Yes," said Percy, "the Isaac Funk farm in McLean County grows more corn on seven thousand acres a year, with an average yield certainly above fifty bushels per acre, and surely making a total above 350,000 bushels; while the State of Rhode Island grows corn on nearly ten thousand acres with an average yield of thirty-two bushels, making a total yield of about 320,000 bushels."
"Well, I'll give it up; but I'd like to know how much corn you raise in the whole State of Illinois."
"Our average production," said Percy, "is about equal to the totalproduction of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, RhodeIsland, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida,Alabama, and Mississippi."
"Eighteen of us!" exclaimed Mr. Robbins, who had counted on his fingers from New York to Mississippi. "And you come to Rhode Island to learn how to raise corn?"
"Yes, I came to learn how you raise more than thirty-five bushels of corn per acre as an average for New England, while we raise less than thirty-five bushels as an average in Illinois, and while Georgia, a larger State than Illinois, raises only eleven bushels per acre as a ten year average. Illinois is a new State, but I call to mind that Roger Williams settled in Rhode Island in 1636 and that he was joined by many others coming not only from Massachusetts but also from other sections. I assume that much of the land in Rhode Island has been farmed for 250 years, and the fact that you are still producing more than thirty bushels of corn per acre, as an average, is, it seems to me, a fact of great significance. I suppose you use all the manure you can make from the crops you raise and perhaps use some commercial fertilizer also. I should like to know what yield of corn you produce without any manure or fertilizer?"
"We don't produce any," said Mr. Robbins; "at least we know we wouldn't produce any corn without fertilizing the land in one way or another. If you will walk over here a little ways you can see for yourself. I didn't have quite enough manure to finish this field and I had no more time to haul seaweed so I planted without getting any manure on a few rods in one corner, and the corn there wouldn't make three bushels from an acre. I didn't bother to try to cut it, but the cows will get what little fodder there is as soon as I can get the shocks out of the field and turn 'em in for a few days to pick up what they can."
Percy examined the corn plants still standing in the corner of the field. They had grown to a height of about two feet. Most of them had tassels and many of them appeared to have little ears, but really had only husks containing no ear. In a few places where the hill contained only one plant a little nubbin of corn could be found.
"I don't mean to let any of my land get as poor as this field was," continued Mr. Robbins, "but I just couldn't get to it, and I left it in hay about two years longer than I should have done. Last year was first class for hay but this field had been down so long it was hardly worth cutting."
"About what yield do you get from the manured land?" inquired Percy.
"In a fair year I get about forty bushels, and that's about what I am getting this year from my best fields. You see there's lots of corn in these shocks. There's about an average ear, and we get five or six ears to the hill."
"Eight-row flint," said Percy, as he took the ear in his hand and drew a celluloid paper knife from his vest pocket with a six-inch scale marked on one side.
"Yes, Sir, our regular Rhode Island White Cap."
"Just five inches long. Weight about three ounces?"
"Perhaps. We count on about four hundred ears to the bushel. If we get four thousand hills to the acre one ear to the hill would give us ten bushels per acre, so you see we only have to have four ears to the hill to make our forty bushels. A good many hills have five to six ears, but then of course, some hills don't have much of any, so I suppose my corn makes an average of four ears about like that."
"I suppose you feed all of the corn you raise in order to produce as much manure as possible."
"Feed that corn! Not much we don't. Why, corn like that brings us close on to a dollar a bushel. No, Sir, we don't feed this corn. It's all used for meal. It makes the best kind of corn meal. No, we buy corn for feed; western corn. Oh, we feed lots of corn; three times as much as we raise; but we don't feed dollar corn, when we can buy western corn for seventy-five or eighty cents.
"I sell corn and I sell potatoes; that's all except the milk. I keep most of my land in meadow and pasture and feed everything I raise except the corn and potatoes. And milk is a good product with us. We average about sixty cents a pound for butter fat, and it's ready money every month; and, of course, we need it every month to pay for feed."
"Then you produce on the farm all the manure you use," suggestedPercy, "but I think you mentioned hauling seaweed."
"Yes, and I haul some manure, too, when I can get it; but usually there are three or four farmers ready to take every load of town manure."
"You get it from town for the hauling?"
"Well, I guess not," said Mr. Robbins emphatically and with apparent astonishment at such a question. "I don't think I would haul seaweed seven miles if I could get manure in town for nothing. Manure is worth $1.50 a ton Iying in the livery stable, and there are plenty to take it at that right along. I'd a little rather pay that than haul seaweed; but the manure won't begin to go around, and so there's nothing left for us but seaweed; and, if we couldn't get that, the Lord only knows what we could do."
"How much seaweed can you haul to a load, and about how many loads do you apply to the acre?"
"When the roads are good we haul a cord and a quarter, and we put ten or twelve loads to the acre for corn and then use some commercial fertilizer."
"Do you know how much a cord of the seaweed would weigh?"
"Yes, a cord weighs about a ton and a half."
"Then you apply about twenty tons of seaweed to the acre for corn?"
"Yes, but some use less and some more; probably that's about an average. Hauling seaweed's a big job and a bad job. We have to start from home long before daylight so as to get there and get the weed while the tide is out, and then we get back with our load about two o'clock in the afternoon; and, by the time we eat and feed the team, and get the load to the field and spread, there isn't much time left that day, especially when you've got to pile out of bed about two o'clock the next morning and hike off for another load."
"Then you use some fertilizer in addition to the seaweed? May I ask how much fertilizer you apply to the acre and about how much it costs per ton?"
"Where we spread seaweed for corn, we add about four hundred and fifty pounds per acre of fertilizer that costs me $26 a ton, but I have the agency and get it some cheaper than most have to pay. Then for potatoes we apply about 1500 pounds of a special potato fertilizer that costs me $34 a ton."
"The fertilizer costs you about $6 an acre for the corn crop and $25 for potatoes," said Percy; "and then you have the cost of the seaweed. I should think you would need to count about $25 or $30 an acre for the expense of hauling seaweed."
"Yes, all of that if we had to pay for the work, but of course we can haul seaweed more or less when the farm work isn't crowding, and we don't count so much on the expense. It doesn't take the cash, except may be a little for a boy to drive one team when we haul two loads at a time; and we don't use seaweed for potatoes. The corn crop will generally more'n pay for it and the fertilizer too; and the seaweed helps for three or four years, especially for grass. There's good profit in potatoes, too, when we get a crop, but they're risky, considering the money we have to pay for fertilizer."
AFTER leaving Rhode Island, Percy spent two days in and about Boston, and then returned to Connecticut for a day. The weather had turned cold; the ground had frozen and the falling snow reminded him that it was the day before Thanksgiving.
From New London he took a night boat to New York, and then took passage on a Coast Line vessel from New York to Norfolk.
The weather had cleared and the wind decreased until it was scarcely greater than the speed of the ship.
Whether or not the dining room service was extraordinary because of the day, Percy was soon convinced that the only way to travel was by boat. He regretted only that his mother was not with him to enjoy that day. For hours they coasted southward within easy view of the New Jersey shore, dotted here and there with cities, towns, and villages. Light houses marked the rocky points where danger once lurked for the men of the sea.
The sea itself was of constant interest; and hundreds of craft were passed or met. Here a full-rigged sailing vessel lazily drifting with the wind; there a giant little tug puffing in the opposite direction with a string of barges in tow loaded almost to the water's edge.
Norfolk was reached early the next morning, and before noon Percy passed through Petersburg on his way to Montplain. He changed cars at Lynchburg and arrived at Montplain before dark. In accordance with a promise to Mr. West he had notified him of his plans.
Would Adelaide met him, and if so would she have the family carriage and again insist upon his riding in the rear seat? He had found these questions in his mind repeatedly since he left New London, with no very definite purpose before him except to arrive at Montplain at the appointed time.
Yes, it was the family carriage. He saw the farm team tied across the street from the depot. As he left the train he caught a glimpse of Adelaide standing with the group of people who were waiting to board the train. She extended her hand as he reached her side.
"Mr. Johnston, meet my cousin, Professor Barstow."
"I am glad to meet you, Professor," said Percy, as he shook hands with a tall young man about his own age. Percy noted his handsome face and gentlemanly bearing.
"Miss Adelaide calls me cousin," said Barstow, "because my aunt married her uncle."
"Well, Sir, if we're not cousins, then I'm Miss West and not Miss Adelaide. Is that too much for an absent-minded professor to remember?"
"I am afraid it is," said Barstow, "and I am sure I would rather be cousins."
"Professor Barstow leaves on this train," Adelaide explained toPercy; "excuse me, please."
Percy raised his hat as he stepped back from the crowd and waited for the parting of the two. He was sure that Barstow held her hand longer than was necessary, and he also noticed that her face flushed as she rejoined him after the train started.
"Will you take the rear seat?" she asked. as they reached the carriage.
"If you so prefer."
"That seat is for our guests, so I don't prefer," came her reply, which left Percy wholly in the dark as to her wishes.
"Then let me be your coachman rather than your guest."
"If you so prefer," she repeated, and without waiting for assistance quickly mounted to the front seat, leaving him to occupy the driver's seat beside her.
"Captain and Mrs. Stone of Montplain were with us for Thanksgiving and I came with the carriage to take them home. Professor Barstow has also been spending his Thanksgiving vacation visiting with papa."
"Thank you," said Percy, as he took the lines and turned the horses toward Westover.
"You are certainly welcome to drive this team if you enjoy it."
"I thank you for that also," said Percy. Adelaide noted the word _also, _but she only remarked that she hoped he had enjoyed his travels, though she could not understand what pleasure he could find in visiting old worn-out farms.
"Of all things," she continued, "it seems to me that farming is the last that anyone would want to undertake."
"It is both the first and the last," said Percy. "As you know, when our ancestors came to America, agriculture was the first great industry they were able to develop. Other industries and professions follow agriculture and must be supported in large measure by the agricultural industry. Merchants, lawyers, doctors and teachers are in a sense agricultural parasites."
An hour before he would not have included teachers in this class; for, next to the mother in the home, he felt that the teacher in the school is the greatest necessity for the highest development of the agricultural classes.
"Without agriculture," he continued, "America could never have been developed, and, unless the prosperity of American agriculture can be maintained, poverty is the only future for this great nation. The soil is the greatest source of wealth, and it is the most permanent form of wealth. The Secretary of Agriculture at Washington told me a few days ago that eighty-six per cent. of the raw materials used in all our manufacturing industry are produced from the soil.
"Yes, agriculture is certainly the first industry in this country; and I am fully convinced that to restore the fertility of the depleted soils of the East and South, and even to maintain the productive power of the great agricultural regions of the West, deserves and will require the best thought of the most influential people of America.
"Throughout the length and breadth of this land, the almost universal purpose of the farmers is to work the land for all they can get with practically no thought of permanency. The most common remark of the corn belt farmer is that his land doesn't show much wear yet; and it is holding up pretty well, or as well as could be expected; or that he thinks it will last as long as he does. All recognize that the land cannot hold up under the systems of farming that are being practiced, and these systems are essentially the same as have been followed in America since 1607. What the Southern farmer did with slave labor, the Western farmer is now doing with the gang plow, the two-row cultivator, and the four-horse disks and harrows. In addition he tile-drains his land which helps to insure larger crops and more rapid soil depletion. He even uses clover as a soil stimulant, and spreads the farm fertilizer as thinly as possible with a machine made for the purpose in order to secure both its plant food value and its stimulating effect. Positive soil enrichment is practically unknown in the great corn belt.
"Robbery is a harsh word; and yet the farmers and landowners of America are and always have been soil robbers; and they not only rob the nation of the possibility of permanent prosperity, but they even rob themselves of the very comforts of life in their old age and their children and grandchildren of a rightful inheritance.
"Worse than all this, or at least more lamentable, is the fact that it need not be. The soils of Virginia need not have become worn out and abandoned; because the earth and the air are filled with the elements of plant food that are essential to the restoration and permanent maintenance of the high productive capacity of these soils. Moreover there is more profit and greater prosperity for the present landowner in a possible practicable system of positive soil improvement than under any system which leads to ultimate depletion and abandonment of the land.
"The profit in farming lies first of all in securing large crop yields. It costs forty bushels of corn per acre in Illinois to raise the crop and pay the rent for the land or interest and taxes on the investment. With land worth $150 an acre, it will require $8 to pay the interest and taxes. Another $8 will be required to raise the crop and harvest and market it, even with very inadequate provision made for maintaining the productive power of the soil, such as a catch crop of clover, or a very light dressing of farm fertilizer. A forty-bushel crop of corn at forty cents a bushel, which is about the ten year average price for Illinois, would bring only $16 an acre, and this would leave no profit whatever.
"A crop of fifty bushels would leave only ten bushels as profit; but, if we could double the yield and thus produce a hundred bushels per acre, the profit would not be doubled only, but it would be six times as great as from the fifty bushel crop. In other words, 100 bushels of corn from one acre would yield practically the same profit as fifty bushels per acre from six acres, simply because it requires the first forty bushels from each acre to pay for the fixed charges or regular expense.
"It is not the amount of crop the farmer handles, but the amount of actual profit that determines his prosperity. It requires profit to build the new home or repair the old one, to provide the home with the comforts and conveniences that are now to be had in the country as well as in the city; to send the boys and girls to college; to provide for the expense of travel and the luxuries of the home."
Percy stopped himself with an apology.
"I hope you will pardon me, Miss West. I forget that this subject may be of no interest to you, and I have completely monopolized the conversation."
"I am glad you have told me so much," she replied. "I am deeply interested in what you have been saying. I never realized that agriculture could involve such very important questions in regard to our national prosperity. I only know that our farm has furnished us with a living but there has been very little of what you call profit. We children could never have gone away to school except that we were enabled to take advantage of some unusual opportunities. My brother almost earned his expenses as commissary in a boarding club at college. He felt that he could not come home for Thanksgiving because he had a chance to earn something and I have missed him so much. Most farmers get barely enough from their farms in these parts to furnish them a modest living and pay their taxes."
"That reminds me of your statement that farming is the last thing that you would expect anyone to undertake. In a large sense that is in accordance with the history of all great agricultural countries. After the great wave of easy spoilation of the land has passed, and the farmers reach a condition under which they need most of what they produce for their own consumption, the parasites are themselves forced to produce their own food. The lands become divided into smaller holdings and the agricultural inhabitants increase rapidly in proportion to the urban population which must depend upon the profits from secondary pursuits for a living. Thus ninety-five per cent. of the three hundred million people of India belong principally to the agricultural classes, and the farms of India average about two to three acres in size. Farming there is in no sense a profit-yielding business, but it is only a means of existence. The people live upon what they raise, so far as they can, although, as you must know, India is almost never free from famine. In Russia, the situation is but little better, for famine follows if the yield of wheat falls two bushels below the average. Special agents of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States Department of Agriculture report that at least one famine year occurs in each five year period, and sometimes even two; that the famine years are so frequent they are recognized as a permanent feature of Russian agriculture."
"But couldn't those poor starving people do some other kind of work and thus earn a better living?" asked Adelaide.
"No. Agriculture is the only hope," said Percy. "The soil is the breast of Mother Earth, from which her children must always draw their nourishment, or perish. It is the 'last thing,' as you truly said. Aside from hunting and fishing, there is no source of food except the soil, and, when this is insufficient for the people who produce it in the country, God pity the poor people who live in the cities. But let us not talk of this more. I ought not to have taken up the time of our ride through this beautiful scenery with a subject which tends always toward the serious. The leaves are all gone in New England, but here they have only taken on their most beautiful colors. 'What is so rare as a day in June?' could now well be answered, 'a day in November in Piedmont, Virginia.'"
"Do you know if your father received a letter for me from the chemist to whom I sent the soil samples?"
"Yes, it came in Wednesday's mail, and there is a letter from the University of Illinois and two others that Grandma says must be from a lady. Papa says he is anxious to know what results would be found in the chemist's report. May I listen while you tell papa about it? Indeed, I am extremely interested to know if anything can be done to make our farm produce such crops as it used to when grandmother was a little girl."
"Still I fear you will find it a very tiresome subject," said Percy. "It is, as a rule, not an easy matter to adopt a system of permanent improvement on land that has been depleted by a century or more of exhaustive husbandry. but you will be very welcome not only to listen but to counsel also. My mother can measure difficulties in advance better than most men; and I believe it is true that women will deliberately plan and follow a course involving greater hardship and privation than men would undertake. I cannot conceive of any man doing what my mother has done for me."
Adelaide glanced at Percy as he spoke of his mother. Something in his words or voice seemed to reveal to her a depth of feeling, a wealth of affection akin to reverence, such as she had never recognized before.
WILKES was at the side gate to meet Adelaide and Percy, and the grandmother stood at the door as they reached the veranda.
"Lucky for us you got back before the Thanksgiving scraps are all gone," she said to Percy, "but I suppose even our Thanksgiving fare will be poor picking after you've been living in Washington and Boston."
"Even the Thanksgiving dinner on the boat was not equal to this," said Percy, as they sat down to the table loaded with such an abundance of good things as is rarely seen except on the farmer's table. The "scraps," if such there were, had no appearance of being left-overs, and there was monster turkey, browned to perfection and sizzling hot, placed before Mr. West ready for the carving knife.
Percy had opened the letter from the chemist, but said to Mr. West that it would take him an hour or more to compute the results to the form of the actual elements and reduce them to pounds per acre in order to make possible a direct comparison between the requirements of crops, on the one hand, and the invoice of the soil and application of plant food in manure and fertilizers, on the other hand.
"Please let me help you make the computations," said Adelaide, much to the surprise of her parents, who knew that she took no interest in affairs pertaining to farming. "I like mathematics and will promise not to make any mistakes if you will tell me how to do some of the figuring."
"Thank you," said Percy. "With your help it will take only half the time that I should require alone."
This proved to be correct, for in half an hour after supper they had the results in simplified form. Even the mother and grandmother joined the circle as Percy began to discuss the results with Mr. West
"Now here is the invoice," said Percy, "of the surface soil from an acre of land where we collected the first composite sample,—the land which you said had not been cropped since you could remember. This soil contains plant food as follows:
1,440 pounds of nitrogen 380 pounds of phosphorus 15,760 pounds of potassium 3,340 pounds of magnesium 10,420 pounds of calcium
"I'd like to know how these amounts compare with what your Illinois soil contains," said Mr. West.
"We have several different kinds of soil in Illinois," replied Percy. "The common corn belt prairie soil is called brown silt loam. It contains, as an average, 5000 pounds of nitrogen and 1200 pounds of phosphorus, or nearly four times as much of each of those elements as this Virginia soil which you say is too poor to cultivate.
"I wrote to the Illinois Experiment Station before I left Washington to see if I could get the average composition of the heavier prairie soil, which occupies the very flat areas that were originally swampy, and one of the letters you had received for me gives 8000 pounds of nitrogen and 2000 pounds of phosphorus as the general average for that soil. That is our most productive land, and it contains about five times as much of these two very important elements as your poorest land.
"Our more common Illinois prairie contains about 35,000 pounds of potassium, 9,000 pounds of magnesium, and I 1,000 pounds of calcium. This is more than twice as much potassium and nearly three times as much magnesium as in your poorest land, but the calcium content is about the same in your soil as in ours. However, as you will remember, your soil is distinctly acid and consequently markedly in need of lime, the magnesium and calcium evidently being contained in part in the form of acid silicates with no carbonates; whereas, our brown silt loam is a neutral soil and our black clay loam contains much calcium carbonate, the same compound as pure limestone."
"I am anxious to know about our best land," said Mr. West. "What did the chemist find in the soil from the slope where we get the best corn after breaking up the old pastures?"
"He found the following amounts in the surface soil," said Percy.
800 pounds of nitrogen
1,660 pounds of phosphorus
34, 100 pounds of potassium
8,500 pounds of magnesium
13,100 pounds of calcium
"Rich in everything but nitrogen," Percy continued, "richer than our common prairies in phosphorus and calcium, and nearly as rich in potassium and magnesium; but very, very poor in nitrogen. Legume plants ought to grow well on that land, because the minerals are present in abundance, and, while lack of nitrogen in the soil will limit the yield of all grains and grasses, there is no nitrogen limit for the legume plants if infected with the proper nitrogen-fixing bacteria, provided, of course, that the soil is not acid. You will remember, however, that even this sloping land is more or less acid, although here and there we found pieces of undecomposed limestone. With a liberal use of ground limestone, any legumes suited to this soil and climate ought to grow luxuriantly on those slopes."
"That reminds me that we are greatly troubled with Japan clover on those slopes," said Mr. West. "Of course it makes good pasture for a few months, but it doesn't come so early in the spring as blue grass and it is killed with the first heavy frost in the fall. We like blue grass much better for that reason, but when we seed down for meadow and pasture, the Japan clover always crowds out the timothy and blue grass on those slopes."
"And when you plow under the Japan clover, you get one or two good crops of grain," said Percy, "because this clover has stored up some much needed nitrogen and the soil is rich in all other necessary elements. Have you ever tried alfalfa on that kind of land? That is a crop that ought to do well there, especially if limestone were applied."
"Yes, I have tried alfalfa," replied Mr. West, "and I tried it on a strip that ran across one of those steep slopes; but it failed completely, and, as I remember it, it was poorer on that hillside than on the more level land."
"Did you inoculate it?" Percy asked.
"Inoculate it? No. I didn't do anything to it, but just sow it the same as I sow red clover."
"What does it mean to inoculate it?" asked Adelaide.
"It means to put some bugs on it," said the grandmother; "some germs or microbes, or whatever they are called. Don't you remember, Adelaide, that I told you about that when I read it in the magazine a while ago? Don't you remember that somebody was making it and a man could carry enough in his vest pocket to fertilize an acre and he wanted $2 a package. Charles said that $1.50 a hundred was more than he could afford to pay for fertilizer, and he didn't care to pay $2 for a vest pocket package. Isn't that the stuff, Mr. Johnston?"
"It listens like it, as the Swedes say," said Percy, "but the advertisements of these germ cultures put out by commercial interests are usually very misleading. The safest and best and least expensive method of inoculating a field for alfalfa is to use infested soil taken from some old alfalfa field or from a patch of ground where the common sweet clover, or mellilotus, has been growing for several years. I saw the sweet clover growing along the railroad near Montplain, and there is one patch on the roadside right where—when you enter the valley on the way to the station."
"Right where Adelaide smashed that nigger's eye with her heel and helped Mr. Johnston capture them both," broke in the grandmother. "That's the only good thing I can say for her peg heeled shoes."
Adelaide colored and Percy now understood what had been a puzzle to him.
"The same bacteria," he went on quickly, "live upon both the sweet clover and the alfalfa, or at least they are interchangeable. These bacteria are not a fertilizer in any ordinary sense, but they are more in the nature of a disease, a kind of tuberculosis, as it were; except that they do much more good than harm. They attack the very tender young roots of the alfalfa and feed upon the nutritious sap, taking from it the phosphorus and other minerals and also the sugar or other carbohydrates needed for their own nourishment, since they have no power to secure carbon and oxygen from the air, as is done by all plants with green leaves. On the other hand, these bacteria have power to take the free nitrogen of the air, which enters the pores of the soil to some extent, and cause it to combine with food materials which are secured from the alfalfa sap, and thus the bacteria secure for themselves both nitrogen and the other essential plant foods. The alfalfa root or rootlet becomes enlarged at the point attacked by the bacteria, and a sort of wart or tubercle is formed which resembles a tiny potato, as large as clover seed on clover or alfalfa, and, singularly, about as large as peas on cowpeas or soy beans. On plants that are sparsely infected, these tubercles develop to a large size and often in clusters. While the bacteria themselves are extremely small and can be seen only by the aid of a powerful microscope, the tubercles in which they live are easily seen, and they are sufficient to enable us to know whether the plants are infected."
"I wish you would tell me the difference between the words inoculated and infected," said Adelaide.
"Inoculated is used in the active sense and infected in the passive," said Percy. "Thus the red clover growing in the field is infected if there are tubercles on its roots, although it may never have been inoculated; and we inoculate alfalfa because it would not be likely to become infected without direct inoculation."
"Under favorable conditions," continued Percy, "these bacteria multiply with tremendous rapidity, somewhat as the germs of small pox or yellow fever multiply if allowed to do so. A single tubercle may contain a million germs which if distributed uniformly over an acre would furnish more than twenty bacteria for every square foot."
"There, Charles," said the grandmother, "wouldn't a vest pocketful of those bugs or germs be a big enough dose for one acre?"
"Well, but they're not a fertilizer, Mother," said Mr. West, "and besides Mr. Johnston says it is better to use the infected sweet clover soil and there is no need of paying $2 an acre for something we knew nothing about, and especially on land that is not worth more than $2 an acre."
"I don't care what it's worth," she replied, "some of it cost your grandfather $68 an acre, and it will never be sold for any $2, while I have any say so about it."
They waited for Percy to proceed.
"The individual bacteria are very short-lived," he continued, "and products of decay soon begin to accumulate in the tubercles. These products contain, in combined form, nitrogen which the bacteria have taken from the air, and in this form it is taken from the tubercles and absorbed through the roots into the host plant and thus serves as a source of nitrogen for all of the agricultural legumes.
"It should be kept in mind, of course, that the red clover has one kind of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, that the cowpea has a different kind, and that the soy bean bacteria are still different, while a fourth kind lives on the roots of alfalfa and sweet clover."
"How much infected sweet clover soil would I need to inoculate an acre of land for alfalfa?" asked Mr. West.
"If the soil is thoroughly infected, a hundred pounds to the acre will do very well if applied at the same time the alfalfa seed is sown and immediately harrowed in with the seed. If allowed to lie for several hours or days exposed to the sunshine after being spread over the land the bacteria will be destroyed, for like most bacteria, such as those which lurk in milk pails to sour the milk, they are killed by the sunshine."
" That's right," said the grandmother. "That's the way to sterilize milk pails and pans and crocks. I like crocks better than pans. They don't have any sort of joints to dig out."
"Of course," continued Percy, "a wagon load of infected soil will make a more perfect inoculation than a hundred pounds, and where it costs nothing but the hauling it is well to use a liberal amount."
"How deep should it be taken?" asked Mr. West.
"About the same depth as you would plow. The tubercles are mostly within six or eight inches of the surface. The bacteria depend upon the nitrogen of the air and this must enter the surface soil. Sometimes in wet weather the tubercles can be found almost at the surface of the ground, and when the ground cracks one can often find tubercles sticking out in the cracks an inch or two beneath the surface but protected from direct sunshine.
"These bacteria have power to furnish very large amounts of nitrogen to such a crop as alfalfa. The Illinois Station reports having grown eight and one-half tons of alfalfa per acre in one season. It was harvested in four cuttings. The hay itself was worth at least $6 a ton above all expenses, which would bring $51 an acre net profit for one year. Of course this was above the average, which is only about four and one-half tons over a series of several years. But suppose you can save only three tons and get $6 a ton net for it, as you could easily do by feeding it to your cattle and sheep. That would bring $18 an acre or six per cent. interest on $300 land. I am altogether confident that this could be done on your sloping hillsides, with their rich supplies of phosphorus and other mineral foods, provided, of course, that you use plenty of ground limestone and thoroughly inoculate the soil."
"Well, I shall certainly try alfalfa again," said Mr. West, "and if I can grow such crops of alfalfa as you think on the hillsides, I can have much more farm manure produced for the improvement of the rest of the land. By the way what did that chemist find in that sample you took of the other land where it does not wash so much as on the steeper slopes."
"He found the following:
1,030 pounds of nitrogen 1,270 pounds of phosphorus 16,500 pounds of potassium 7,460 pounds of magnesium 16,100 pounds of calcium
"Well, the phosphorus is not so low," said Mr. West.
"Fully equal to that in our $150 Illinois prairie," replied Percy, "and again the calcium is more than ours, with magnesium not far below, and potassium half our supply. Nitrogen is plainly the most serious problem on most of this farm, and limestone and legumes must solve that problem if properly used."
"Do you think this land could be made as valuable as the Illinois land just by a liberal use of limestone and legumes?" asked Adelaide.
"I should have some doubt about that," Percy replied. "Your very level uplands that neither lose nor receive material from surface washing are very deficient in phosphorus and much poorer than ours in potassium and magnesium; and your undulating and steeply sloping lands are more or less broken, with many rock outcrops on the points and some impassable gullies, which as a rule compel the cultivation of the land in small irregular fields. A three-cornered field of from two to fifteen acres can never have quite the same value per acre as the land where forty or eighty acres of corn can be grown in a body with no necessity of omitting a single hill. Then there is some unavoidable loss from surface washing, so that to maintain the supply of organic matter and nitrogen will require a larger use of legumes than on level land of equal richness. In addition to this is the initial difference in humus content. This is well measured by the nitrogen content. While your soil contains eight hundred pounds of nitrogen on the steeper slopes and one thousand pounds on the more gently undulating areas, ours contains five thousand pounds in the brown silt loam and eight thousand pounds in the heavier black clay loam. This means that our Illinois prairie soil contains from five to ten times as much humus, or organic matter, as your best upland soil. To supply this difference in humus would require the addition of from four hundred to eight hundred tons per acre of average farm manure, or the plowing under of one hundred to two hundred tons of air-dry clover. This represents the great reserve of the Illinois prairie soils above the total supplies remaining in your soils.
"Our farmers are still producing crops very largely by drawing on this reserve. Of course most of this great supply of humus is very old. It represents the organic residues most resistant to decomposition; and, where corn and oats are grown exclusively, the soil has reached a condition on many farms under which the decomposition of the reserve organic matter is so slow that the nitrogen liberated from its own decay and the minerals liberated from the soil by the action of the decomposition products are not sufficient to meet the requirements of large crops, and for this reason alone some of our lands that are still rich are said to be run down; but they only require a moderate use of clover or farm manure or other fresh and active organic matter to at once restore their productiveness to a point almost equal to the yields from the virgin soil. Some Illinois farmers who have discovered this apparent restoration have jumped to the conclusion that they have solved the problem of permanently maintaining the fertility of the soil; and I judge from a remark made by the Secretary of Agriculture that some Iowa farmers have the same mistaken notions.
"These fresh supplies of active organic matter serve primarily as soil stimulants, hastening the liberation of nitrogen from the organic reserve and of minerals from the inorganic soil materials.
"Where one of the Eastern farmers has managed a farm under the rotation system with the occasional use of clover or light applications of farm manure,—where this has been continued until the great reserve is largely gone, and the phosphorus supply greatly depleted, then the land is truly run down, but not until then.
"Finally, land-plaster and quick-lime, still more powerful soil stimulants, are often brought into the system to bring about a more complete exhaustion of the soil reserves, and lastly the use of small amounts of high-priced commercial fertilizers serves to put the land in suitable condition for ultimate abandonment."
"Do you mean that commercial fertilizers injure the soil?" asked Mr.West.
"Well, to some extent they injure the soil because they tend to destroy the limestone and increase the acidity of the soil, and also because they contain more or less manufactured land-plaster and thus serve as soil stimulants; but the chief point to keep in mind concerning the use of the common so-called complete commercial fertilizer is that they are too expensive to permit their use in sufficient quantities to positively enrich the soil. Thus the farmer may apply two hundred pounds of such a fertilizer at a cost of $3.00 an acre, and then harvest a crop of wheat, two crops of hay, pasture for another year or two, plow up the grounds for corn, apply another two hundred pounds for the corn crop, follow with a crop of oats, and then repeat. He thus harvests five crops and pastures a year or two and applies perhaps four hundred pounds of fertilizer at a cost of $6.00.
"As an average of the most common commercial fertilizers sold to the farmers in the Eastern and Southern States, the four hundred pounds would add to the soil seven pounds of nitrogen, fourteen pounds of phosphorus and seven pounds of potassium, while a single fifty-bushel crop of corn will remove from the soil ten times as much nitrogen, five times as much potassium, and nearly as much phosphorus as the total amounts applied in this six-year or seven-year rotation.
"In this manner the farmer extends the time during which he can take from the soil crops whose value exceed their cost. He applies only one-fourth or possibly one-half as much of the most deficient element as the crops harvested require, and thus he continues for a longer time to 'work the land for all that's in it! '"
"Well, isn't that the limit?" said Adelaide, with emphasis on the "isn't," for which she received a disapproving look from her mother, so far as her almost angel-face could give such a look.
"So far as human ingenuity has yet devised," replied Percy, "this system appears to be the limit; but this limit has not yet been reached on any Westover soil. If anyone can devise a method for extending this limit he should apply it on a type of soil covering more than two-fifths of the total area of St. Mary County and more than 45,000 acres of Prince George County, Maryland, some of which almost adjoins the District of Columbia. This soil has been reduced in fertility until it contains only one-third as much phosphorus as your poorest land. I found a Western man who had come down to Maryland a few years ago. He saw that beautiful almost level upland soil, and it looked so good to him that he bought and kept buying until he had 'squared out' a tract of eleven hundred acres. He still had left money enough to fence the farm and to put the buildings in good repair. He was a live-stock farmer from the West who just knew from his own experience and from that of the Secretary of Agriculture, in the use of a little clover or farm manure in unlocking the great reserves of an almost virgin soil, that all his Maryland farm needed was clover seed and live stock. Sheep especially he knew to be great producers of fertility.
"He sowed the clover and grass seed and they germinated well. He even secured a fine catch, but it failed to hold, as we say out West. He tried again and again, and failed as often as he tried. He showed me his best clover on a field that had received some manure made from feed part of which was purchased, and that had also received five hundred pounds per acre of hydrated lime, which he was finally persuaded to use, after becoming convinced that clover-growing on old abandoned land was not exactly as easy as clover-growing on a 'run-down' farm of almost virgin soil in the West."
"And was the clover good after that treatment?" asked Mr. West.
"No, not good," said Percy, "but in some places where the manure had been applied to the high points, as is the custom of the Western farmer, the yield of clover, weeds, and foul grass together must have been nearly a half ton to the acre. Fortunately he waited to fully stock his farm with cattle and sheep until he should have some assurance of producing sufficient feed to keep them for a time at least, instead of making the common mistake of the less experienced farmer who goes to the country from the city, and who imagines that, if he has plenty of stock on the farm, they must of necessity produce abundance of manure with which to enrich his land for the production of abundant crops."
"Well, now you'll have to show me," said the grandmother. "To my way of thinking that's a pretty good kind of a notion for a farmer to have, and I'd like to know what's wrong with it."
Again a shadow seemed to cross the sweet face as the mother's glance turned from grandma to Adelaide.
"The system has some merit," replied Percy, "but it starts at the wrong point in the circle. Cattle and sheep must first have feed before they can produce the fertilizer with which to enrich the soil; and people who would raise stock on poor land should always produce a good supply of food before they procure the stock requiring to be fed. There is probably no more direct route to financial disaster than for one to insist upon over-stocking a farm that is essentially worn out."
"But doesn't pasturing enrich the soil?" asked the grandmother.
"Pasturing may enrich the soil only in a single element of plant food," said Percy. "In all other elements simple pasturing must always contribute toward soil depletion. If the pasture herbage contains a sufficient proportion of legume plants so that the fixation of free nitrogen exceeds the utilization of nitrogen in animal growth, then the soil will be enriched in that element, although with the same growth of plants it would be enriched more rapidly without pasturing; for animals are not made out of nothing. Meat, milk, and wool are all highly nitrogenous products.
"On the other hand no amount of pasturing can add to the soil a single pound of any one of the six mineral elements, and phosphorus, which is normally the most limited of all these elements, is abstracted from the soil and retained by the animals in very considerable amounts. As an average one-fourth of the phosphorus contained in the food consumed is retained in the animal products, especially in bone, flesh, and milk."
"Well, I didn't know that milk contained phosphorus," said Mr. West, "although I did know, of course, that phosphorus must be contained in bone."
"But, as you know," said Percy, "milk is the only food of young animals, and they must secure their bone food from the milk. Furthermore, the complete analysis of milk shows that it contains very considerable quantities. There are also records of digestion experiments in which less than one-half of the phosphorus in the food consumed was recovered in the total manural excrements. As a matter of fact there is a time in the life of the young mother, as with the two-year old cow, for example, when she must abstract from the food she consumes sufficient phosphorus for the nourishment of three growing animals,—her own immature body, a suckling calf, and another calf as yet unborn.
"Of course the organic matter of the soil should increase under pasturing, especially under conditions that make possible an accumulation of nitrogen; but here too the animals make no contribution toward any such accumulation. With the same growth of plants the accumulation of organic matter would be much more rapid without live stock."
"It is known absolutely but not generally that live stock destroy about two-thirds of the organic matter contained in the food they consume. With grains the proportion is higher, and with coarse forage it is lower, but as an average about two-thirds of the dry matter in tender young grass or clover or in a mixed, well-balanced ration of grain and hay is digested and thus practically destroyed so far as the production of organic matter is concerned.
"This you could easily verify yourself, Mr. West, by feeding two thousand pounds of any suitable ration, such as corn and clover hay, collecting and drying the total excrement, which will be found to weigh about seven hundred pounds, if it contains no higher percentage of moisture than was contained in the two thousand pounds of food consumed.