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Show fGRIGULTURE H ENRICHING THE SOIL. H Dr. Hopkins' Striking Illustration of H What Does and What Doesn't H Do H Dr. Cyril G. Hopkins of the Univor- H &uy of5 Illinois spoke to the students M ui the Charleston Nannai schoo and H farmers' institute) of that district H making some of the clearest and most fl needed distinctions about soil truth m and what the school teachers can do, M that have yet gone into print. The M personal inilucncc of this earnest 1 farmer-chemist-tcaeher, full of his H subject, and arguing simply and di- H reclly from plain, definite, proven H facts, right out of the laboratory and H farmers' fields, made a strong, help- H fill impressions upon these young men H and women who may guide the H thought of thousands of own younu H people to sec the truth about our soils, H the truth that affects our whole pop- H ulntion. Here are some of hr3 intro- H ductory ideas: H Oldest Art and Newest Science. H Theme are two sides to agriculture. H One; is the ar.t, the oldest art in (he H world, unless it be hunting and fish- V ing. The other is' the science, the H newest of all sciences. People get M these confused. As teachers in an M agricultural country we need to prc- H vent in Illinois soils the thing that H has occurred in West Virginia and H New England. How much easier it m would have been for. the oast to pre- H serve her soils than it is now to .rc- H store them. We must maintain our soils M and their productive power or we must M come to the same condition of pcr- B iodical famines and starvation of oth- M cr countries, like China, India and 1 Russia. It is figured that we will M have 200 million people here to feed H in the next forty years, and we must m be independent, must .raise our own H food. H Evil Result of Good Work. B It is a hard task to get Illinois m farmers to maintain what they have M got in the soil. It is not enough to M work from 4 a. m. to 10 p. m.; hard M work will not build up the soil. The m drainage will not build up the soil. M Lalrger crop's secured by deep plow ing or better cultivation will only make the Jamd poorer. Planting the best seed so there is not a missing hill in the field, will not enrich the soil any, not a bit. A Startling Question. Do we do anything to enrich the tfand, or arc we exerting all our thought and energy in efforts to make the land poorer? But a farmer says, "I'm helping my land; I'm growing clover." Growing two or three crops of corn and then one crop of clover and removing re-moving it from the land, is only helping help-ing to make the land poorer, lie will get a better crop of corn after the clover, and so he will after, tilling or using better seed, or cultivating well, but this doesn't prove absoutcly tha: the land is getting richer. Simple Problem in Arithmetic. Two 5o-bushcl crops or corn wili take 100 pounds of nitrogon from- the soil (even when the stalks arc plowed under); a- so-bushed crop of oats will remove 45 pounds of nitrogen. Here is 145 pounds of nitrogen lost hi three crops. If the clovctf crop' gets all its, nitrogen from the air, and we plow undei one ton per acre of the clover besides the roots, this will return to the soil only 60 pounds of nitogen; we arc still short 85 pounds of nitrogen. We arc not building up the soil. Almost no farmers in the state arc turning under enough clover to keep up the nitrogen that is removed remov-ed by the crops of the (rotation. A Kind of Soil Intemperance, We are using clover as a stimulair, turning under no more than one-fourth one-fourth or one-half as much as the soil needs to make up for what the crops take off. It is just like drawing out of the bank md putting in $1. . are returning to the soil just enough nitrogen to stimulate and encourage the young plant, but of course the soil is growing poorer. That's what we're doing in the art of agriculture, getting up at 4 a. m. and working until to p. m. What is to prevent us from ruining the land? Do you know of any soil area as big as Illinois that has been, fa-med for 200 years that has not been practically ruined? I do not unless it is the Nile valley. Nine-tenths of the farms in the eastcrn states arc not making money; the owners arc just getting a living. Science to the Rescue. ' The science of agriculture must help us to restore plant food to the soil and to maintain its fertility. Some farmers think you arc going to teacli the art of agriculture. , That is a mistake. mis-take. You should teach the thing that the farmer doesn't know and that he . can't find out by getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning and working hard all day. Teach what the soil contains, con-tains, what the crop takes out of it, what is- required by the soil to grow good crops for a thousand years. What Teachers Can and Can't Do. The teacher can learn that from lit-crature; lit-crature; you can get the facts and you can teach thcm. Maybe you couldn't hitch up a horse right, b:t you don't need to know (hat, you don't need to teach the art of r.gricultuic, but you can leach something of its science. Only One Way. Ko.auoit uuuttii 1 auu uuytuiivg lu the soil. It deosn"t hcup the bank account ac-count for all the membcj. of tue tnm-.ry tnm-.ry 10 write .checks against it msteaM of one. There is oiuy one way to eu- rich the soil, ihe same as Hie bank account, ac-count, and that is to put back what you take cut, and a little more. Don you think the farmer ought to kno.v what it takes to niac corn, and what building up the soil needs to supply this maternal? (The plant food elements of the soil, crop requirements, what com-mcrcail com-mcrcail fertilizers do and do not add, the economy of it- and other soil facts were discussed in two addxsses). Reported Re-ported for Illinois Farmers' Institute by Arthur J. Bill. |