CHAPTER XXXI
THEORIES VERSUS FACTS

PERCY planned to walk to Blue Mound to take the three-thirty train that Saturday afternoon; but Adelaide's parents both insisted that she would willingly drive to the station, and the grandmother discovered that she needed a certain kind of thread which Adelaide could then also get at the store.

"Certainly," said Adelaide, with some merriment, "I always enjoy our departing guests to the train."

"Very well," replied Percy. "If you must go to get the thread and will permit me to be the coachman, I shall be satisfied, for you will be home early."

"Then we will take the colts and buckboard, and I shall be home in less than twenty minutes after your train leaves the station."

"I think I have missed several days of your beautiful 'Indian Summer,' because of my trip to the North," Percy remarked to Mr. West as they sat on the broad veranda waiting for the hour of two thirty when the colts were to be ready for the drive.

"I wish you might have been with us while Professor Barstow was here," replied Mr. West, "not only because of the mild autumn weather we have had, but also because Professor Barstow has some ideas about questions of soil fertility that are very different from those you hold. He says a young man from Washington gave a lecture at his college down in North Carolina, in which he informed them that the cause of infertility of soils is a poisonous substance excreted by the plant itself, and that this can be overcome by changing from one crop to another because the excrete of one plant, while poisonous to that plant, will not be poisonous to other plants of a different kind. Thus, by rotation of crops, good crops could be grown indefinitely on the same land without the addition of plant food. He said that the soil water alone dissolved plenty of plant food from all soils for the production of good crops, and that the supply of plant food will be permanently maintained, because the plant food contained in the subsoil far below where the roots go is being brought to the surface by the rise of the capillary moisture, and that there is in fact a steady tendency toward an accumulation of plant food in the surface soil. He said that it is never necessary to apply fertilizing material to any soil for the purpose of increasing the supply of plant food in that soil. He admitted that applications of fertilizers sometimes produce increased crop yields, but that the effect was due to the power of the fertilizer to destroy the toxic substances excreted by the plants, and this is really the principal effect of potash, phosphates, and nitrates, and also of farm manure and green manures. Humus, he said, is one of the very best substances for destroying these toxic excrete although they had some other things which were as good or better than any sore of fertilizing materials. He mentioned especially a substance called pyrogallol, which cost $2.00 a pound, and of course it could not be applied on a large scale; but it was as good a fertilizer as anything, although it contains nothing but carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, which, as you explained to me when you were here before, the plants secure in abundance from air and water. This information had been secured in the laboratories at Washington by growing wheat seedlings in water culture for twenty-day periods."

"I have already heard something of those theories," said Percy, "but I shall be glad to have you tell me more about them. As I understand them, we need only to rotate and cultivate and our lands should always continue to produce bountiful crops. Is that correct?"

"I understand that is the theory," replied Mr. West, "but I know it is not correct for my grandfather used to grow two or three times as much wheat per acre as I can grow, and I rotate much more than he did. In fact I can grow only ten to fifteen bushels of wheat per acre once in ten years, whereas he grew from twenty-five to forty bushels per acre in a five-year rotation; and I don't see that there is any particular connection between the growing of wheat seedlings in small pots or bottles for a few twenty-day periods and the growing of crops in soils during successive seasons. No, I don't take any stock in their theories. I think they are watered, or perhaps I should say hydrated, in deference to science. But I would like to know about this question of plant food coming up from below. That would be a happy solution of the fertilizer problem."

"It is true," said Percy, "that soluble salts are brought to the surface in the rise of moisture by capillarity in times of partial drouth; and in the arid regions where the small amount of water that falls in rain or snow leaves the soil only by evaporation, because there is never enough to produce underdrainage, the salts tend to accumulate at the surface. The alkali conditions in the arid or semiarid regions of the West are thus produced. But in humid sections where more or less of the rainfall leaves the soil as underdrainage the regular loss by leaching is so much in excess of the rise by capillarity that soils which are not affected by erosion or overflow steadily decrease in fertility even under natural conditions, with no cultivation and no removal of crops. Of course this applies at first only to the mineral plant foods, as phosphorus potassium, magnesium, and calcium. While mineral supplies are abundant in the surface soil, there may be a large acumulation of organic matter and nitrogen, especially because of the growth of wild legumes, which are very numerous and in places very abundant, especially on some of the virgin prairies of the West. However, as the process of leaching proceeds there comes a time when the growth of the native vegetation is limited because of a deficiency in some essential mineral plant food, such as phosphorus, or the limestone completely disappears and soil acidity develops which greatly lessens the growth of the legumes.

"Decomposition of organic matter begins almost as soon as any part of the plant ceases to live, and there is certain to come a time when the rate of decomposition and loss exceeds the rate of fixation and accumulation; and from that time on the organic matter and nitrogen as well as the mineral plant foods continue to decrease in the surface, until finally the natural barrens are developed, such as are found in different sections of the World and in some places even where the rainfall is sufficient for abundant crops."

"Yes, Sir," said Mr. West. "I know that is true. I have visited Tennessee and I know there are some extensive areas there of practically level upland which have always been considered too poor to justify putting under cultivation, and they are called the 'Barrens'."

"I know about those barren lands, too," said Percy. "Our teacher of soil fertility in college told us that a farm is more than a piece of the earth's surface. He said if we only wanted to get a large level tract of upland where the climate is mild and the rainfall abundant and where all sorts of crops do well on good soil, including the wonderful cotton crop which brings a hundred dollars for a thousand pounds, while corn brings forty dollars for a hundred bushels,--well, he said we could go to the Highland Rim of Tennessee where, according to analyses reported in 1897 by the Tennessee Experiment Station, the surface soil of the ' Barrens' contains eighty-seven pounds of phosphorus and the subsoil sixty-one pounds of phosphorus per acre, counting two million pounds of soil in each case. He said, if we didn't like that we might go into the Great Central Basin of Tennessee or the famous Blue Grass Region of Kentucky and find land that is still extremely productive and more valuable than ever, even after a hundred years of cultivation, and buy land containing from three thousand to fifteen thousand pounds of phosphorus per acre."

"I know both of those sections very well," said Mr. West. "But doesn't it seem strange that the scientists at Washington would teach as they do? Why doesn't the plant food accumulate in the surface soil of those barrens? Surely they have been lying there long enough, with no crops whatever removed, so that they ought to have become very rich. I wish I had known about their phosphorus content so I could have told Professor Barstow. He was quite carried away with the Washington theory."

"You ought not for a moment call it the 'Washington' theory," said Percy; "and neither is it promulgated by scientists, but rather by two or three theorists who are upheld by our greatest living optimist. Science, Sir, is a word to be spoken of always with the greatest respect. Of course you know its meaning?"

"Yes, I know it comes from the Latin scire, to know."

"Then science means knowledge; it does not mean theory or hypothesis, but absolute and positive knowledge. Is there any uncertainty as to the instant when the next eclipse will appear? No, none whatever. Science means knowledge, and men are scientists only so far as they have absolute knowledge, and to that extent every farmer is a scientist.

"Nevertheless the erroneous teaching so widely promulgated by the federal Bureau of Soils is undoubtedly a most potent influence against the adoption of systems of positive soil improvement in the United States, because it is disseminated from the position of highest authority. Other peoples have ruined other lands, but in no other country has the powerful factor of government influence ever been used to encourage the farmers to ruin their lands."



CHAPTER XXXII
GUESSING AND GASSING

AS we were riding to Montplain yesterday," said Adelaide to Percy, soon after they started for Blue Mound, "Professor Barstow told me that in his opinion all that was needed to redeem these old lands of Virginia and the Carolinas is plenty of efficient labor, such as he thinks we had before the war. I know papa does not agree with him in that, but Professor said that soils do not wear out if well cultivated, that in New England they grow as large crops as ever, and that in Europe, on the oldest lands the crop yields are very much larger than in the United States; and in fact that the European countries are producing about twice as large crops as they did a hundred years ago. He thinks it is because they do their work more thoroughly than we do. He says that 'a little farm well tilled' is the key to the solution of our difficulties."

"That might seem to be a good guess as to the probable relation of cause and effect," replied Percy, "but we ought not to overlook some well known facts that have an important bearing. It is exactly a hundred years since DeSaussure of France, first gave to the world a clear and correct and almost complete statement concerning the requirements of plants for plant food and the natural sources of supply. Sir Humphrey Davy, Baron von Liebig, Lawes and Gilbert, and Hellriegel followed DeSaussure and completely filled the nineteenth century with accumulated scientific facts relating to soils and plant growth.

"Sir John Bennett Lawes, the founder of the Rothamsted Experiment Station, the oldest in the world, on his own private estate at Harpenden, England, began his investigations in the interest of practical agricultural science soon after coming into possession of Rothamsted in 1834. In 1843 he associated with him in the work Doctor Joseph Henry Gilbert, and for fifty-seven years those two great men labored together gathering agricultural facts. Sir John died in 1900, and Sir Henry the following year.

"That the people of Europe have made some use of the science thus evolved is evident from the simple fact that they are taking out of the United States every year about a million tons of our best phosphate rock for which they pay us at the point of shipment about five millions dollars; whereas, if this same phosphate were applied to our own soils that already suffer for want of phosphorus, it would make possible the production of nearly a billion dollars' worth of corn above what these soils can ever produce without the addition of phosphorus. And our phosphate is only a part of the phosphate imported into Europe. They also produce rock phosphate from European mines, and great quantities of slag phosphate from their phosphatic iron ores.

"They feed their own crops and large amounts of imported food stuffs, and utilize all fertilizing materials thus provided for the improvement of their own lands. Legume crops are grown in great abundance and are often plowed under to help the land.

"Do you wonder why the wheat yield in England is more than thirty bushels per acre while that of the United States is less than fourteen bushels? Because England produces only fifty million bushels of wheat, while she imports two hundred million bushels of wheat, one hundred million bushels of corn, nearly a billion pounds of oil cake, and other food stuffs, from which large quantities of manure are made; and, in addition to this, England imports and uses much phosphate and other commercial plant food materials.

"Germany imports great quantities of wheat, corn, oil cake, and phosphates, and thus enriches her cultivated soil, and Germany's principal export is two billion pounds of sugar, which contains no plant food of value, but only carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, secured from air and water by the sugar beet.

"Denmark produces four million bushels of wheat, imports five million bushels of wheat, fifteen million bushels of corn, fifteen million bushels of barley, eight hundred million pounds of oil cake, eight hundred million pounds of mill feed, and other food stuffs, phosphate, etc., and exports one hundred and seventy-five million pounds of butter, which contains no plant food of value, but sells for much more than these imports cost.

"Italy applies to her soils every year about a million tons of phosphates, which contain nearly twice as much phosphorus as is removed from the land in all the crops harvested and sold from the farms of Italy.

"The very good yields of the crops of New England are attributable to large use of fertilizing materials, in part made from food stuffs shipped in from the West; and the high development of certain lands of Europe and New England has been possible under the system followed only because the areas concerned are small. Thus, the average acreage of corn in Rhode Island and Connecticut is less than three townships, or less than one-tenth as much corn land in the two States as the area of single counties in the Illinois corn belt.

"Did you ever hear of the 'Egypt' we have out West, Miss West?"

"Out West, Miss West," she repeated. " That is too much repetition of the same word to make a good sentence. I like 'Miss Adelaide' better; I do get tired of hearing West and Westover over and over. Yes, I have heard of the 'Egypt' you have out West. Is it near Illinois?"

"Near Illinois? Why, Miss Adelaide, I am surprised that you should even know about the crop yields of Rhode Island and not know where 'Egypt' is. Let me inform you that 'Egypt' is in Illinois, and our 'Egypt' is a country as large as thirteen states the size of Rhode Island. Cairo is the Capital, and Alexandria, Thebes, and Joppa are all near by. Tamm and Buncombe, and Goreville and Omega are also among our promising cities of 'Egypt,' although you may not so easily associate them with the ancient world."

"Well I know where Cairo is," Adelaide replied, "but if your 'Egypt' is on the map you will have to show me. I know now that 'Egypt' is in Southern Illinois, but how do you separate 'Egypt' from the rest of the State?"

"We make no such separation," said Percy. "But to find 'Egypt' on the map, you need only take the State of Illinois and subtract therefrom all that part of the corn belt situated between the Mississippi River and the west line of Indiana. The southern point of ' Egypt' is at Cairo, the Capital, and it is bounded on the east, south, and west, by the Wabash, the Ohio, and the Mississippi; but the north line is not only imaginary, but it is movable. In fact it is always just a few miles farther south, but I think all 'Egyptians' will agree that a sand bar which is being formed below Cairo between the Ohio and the Mississippi is truly 'Egyptian ' territory. If you ever visit in the West do not fail to see 'Egypt.'

"I really hope I may, sometime," she replied. "We have relatives who claim to live in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, but I think possibly they may all be 'Egyptians,' from what you have told me about the vast area of that great fairy empire. I know I would dearly love to go there."

"'Egypt' is the wheat belt and the fruit belt of Illinois," Percy continued. "One of the grand old men of Illinois, Colonel N. B. Morrison, who was for years a trustee of the State University, used to be called upon for an address whenever he was present at Convocation. He always stated proudly that he lived in the 'Heart of Egypt.' He said the soil there was not so rich perhaps as in the corn belt, but that with plenty of hard work they were able to live and to produce the finest fruit and the greatest men in America. He said they had to work both the top and bottom of their soil, and he explained that they harvested wheat and apples from the top, and then went down about 600 feet and harvested ten thousand tons of coal to the acre, and still left enough to support the earth. I have heard him say that when he was born there was not a mile of railroad in the United States, and that he had during his own lifetime, witnessed the practical agricultural ruin of almost whole States. He used to plead for the University to send some of her scientific men to help them to solve the problem of restoring the fertility of their soils down in 'Egypt'; and I am glad to say that finally the State appropriated sufficient funds so that the Illinois Experiment Station is rapidly securing the exact information needed to make those Southern Illinois lands richer than they ever were.

"I spent several days in 'Egypt' last month and I am planning to make another trip down there next week before deciding definitely about purchasing our poor land farm. I am not sure but the land of 'Egypt' is as poor as we ought to try to build up considering our limited means."

"Oh, do you think so? But Papa's land is not so poor is it?"

"No, it is not so poor in mineral plant food on the sloping areas, but even there it is extremely poor in humus and nitrogen. However, I fear I could not enjoy farming in irregular patches of five or ten acres, and the level lands of Virginia and Maryland are so exceedingly poor, that much time and money and work will be required to put them on a paying basis. There would be no pleasure or satisfaction in merely robbing other farms to build up mine, as some of the prosperous truck farmers and dairymen are doing. I should want to practice a system of soil improvement of unlimited application so that it would not be a curse to the agricultural people, as is the case with the man who builds up his farm only at the expense of other farms.

"We have been speaking of the development of agriculture on the small tracts of cultivable land in the great manufacturing States of New England. But, if we would make a fair comparison with a State like Illinois, we should consider some great agricultural State, as Georgia, for example, which is also one of the original thirteen. Georgia is a larger State than Illinois, and Georgia cultivates as many acres of corn and cotton as we cultivate in corn. But Georgia land cannot be covered with fertilizer made from Illinois corn, nor even with seaweed and fish-scrap from the ocean. Her agriculture must be an independent agriculture, just as the agriculture of Russia, India, and China must be, just as the agriculture of Illinois must be, and as the agriculture of all the great agricultural States must be. What is the result to date? The average yield of corn in Georgia is down to 11 bushels per acre. This is not for half of one township, but the average of four million acres for the last ten years; and this in spite of the fact that Georgia out more for the common acidulated manufactured so-called complete commercial fertilizer than any other State."

"That is appalling," said Adelaide, "but still some larger countries are building up their lands, such as those of Europe."

"In large part by the same methods as the New England truckers and dairymen are following," he replied, "and in comparison with the area and resources of their colonies and of the other great new countries upon which they draw for food and fertilizer, they are fairly comparable with the New England States in this country. Even the Empire of Germany is only four-fifths as large as Texas. The only country of Europe at all comparable with the United States is Russia, and in that great country the average yield of wheat for the last twenty years is eight and one-fourth bushels per acre, even though, as a general practice, the land is allowed to lie fallow every third year. The average yield for the five famine years that have occurred during the twenty-year period was six and one-quarter bushels of wheat per acre."

"That is wretched," said Adelaide, "I know about the Russian famines for we have made contributions through our church for their relief, but that condition can surely never come to this great rich new country, can it?"

"It will come just as certainly as we allow our soil fertility to decrease and our population to increase. As a nation we have scarcely lifted a hand yet to stop the waste of fertility or to restore exhausted lands; practically every effort put forth by the Federal government along agricultural lines having been directed toward better seeds, control of injurious insects and fungous diseases, exploitation of new lands by drainage and irrigation, popularly called 'reclamation,' although applied only to rich virgin soils which can certainly be brought under cultivation at any future time either by the Government or by private enterprise. But why should not the Federal government make all necessary provisions to furnish ground limestone and phosphate rock at the actual cost of quarrying, grinding, and transporting, in order that farmers on these old depleted soils may be encouraged to adopt systems of soil improvement; or even compelled to adopt such systems, just as they are compelled to build school houses, bridges, and battleships?"

"Perhaps the Government would do this," said Adelaide, "if the Secretary of Agriculture would recommend it."

"I have heard of the 'big if,'" Percy replied slowly, "but I am afraid this if will beat the record for bigness. His soil theorists continue to assure him that soils do not wear out, no matter how heavily cropped, if they are only rotated and cultivated; and to support their theories they have forsaken the data from the most carefully conducted and long continued scientific investigations, and indulged in a game of guessing that the increasing productiveness of a few small countries of Europe is not due to any necessary addition of plant food.

"But here is the depot, and I have taken almost an hour to drive three miles. If I had hurried, you might have been back home by this time. I am afraid I have been selfish in allowing the team to walk nearly all of the way, but they will at least be fresh for the home trip which you promised to make in less than twenty minutes, I remember. Now if you will hold the lines, I will run into the store to get the thread. I remember the kind; I often do such errands for mother."

"I will wait while you get your ticket and find out if the train is on time," said Adelaide, as Percy returned with the thread.

"At least fifty minutes late," he reported, "and the agent said he was glad of it for he would need about that time to make out such a long-jointed ticket as I want. I am rather glad too, for I can watch you to the turn in the road on the hill, which must be a mile or more, and I will time you. You can have six minutes to make that corner."

"You mean I can have six minutes to get out of sight," she suggested.

"I think you are out of sight," he ventured.

Adelaide reddened. "I shall have to tell mother what slang you use," she said.

"I hope you will," he retorted, "for I have watched her watch you and I am sure she will agree with me. But I do feel that I owe you a sincere apology for taking up the time we have had together with this long discussion of the things that are of such special interest to me. I have been alone with my mother so much and she is always so ready and so able, I may add, to discuss any sort of business matter that I fear I have been forgetful of your forbearance."

"But you really have not," Adelaide replied. "I keep books for papa, and I am very much interested in these social and economic questions which are so fundamental to the perpetuity of our State and National prosperity. I have been both entertained and instructed by these discussions; and I might say, honored, too, that you do not consider me too young and foolish to talk of serious subjects."

"I am sure it is kind of you to make good excuses for me. You have at any rate relieved my mind of some burden, but I am sure you are the only woman I have ever known, except my mother, who could endure discussions of this sort. I have so greatly enjoyed the few short visits I have had with you. I wish I might write to you and I shall be so much interested to learn what success your father has if he begins a system of soil improvement. Would it be presuming to hope that I might hear from you also?"

"I am papa's stenographer," she replied, "and perhaps he will dictate and I will write. We will be glad to hear of your safe return,--and you,--you might ask papa. Now, I shall soon be out of sight."

"Please don't," begged Percy. "It is still forty-five minutes 'at least,' before the train comes. Let me go a piece with you. I will leave my suit case here and with nothing to carry I shall easily walk a mile in twenty minutes. May I drive, please?"

"No, I will drive. I want to ask you another question, and I am afraid you would drive too fast.

"You mentioned some long-continued scientific investigations which I assumed referred to the yield of crops. What were they?"

"I meant such investigations as those at Rothamsted and also those conducted at Pennsylvania State College. I have some of the exact data here in my note book.

"In 1848, Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert began at Rothamsted, England, two four-year rotations. One was turnips, barley, fallow, and wheat; and the other was turnips, barley, clover, and wheat. Whenever the clover failed, which has been frequent, beans were substituted, in order that a legume crop should be grown every fourth year.

"The average of the last twenty years represents the average yields about fifty years from the beginning of this rotation.

"In the legume system, as an average of the last twenty years, the use of mineral plant food has increased the yield of turnips from less than one-half ton to more than twelve tons; increased the yield of barley from thirteen and seven-tenths bushels to twenty-two and two-tenths bushels; increased the yield of clover (when grown) from less than one-half ton to almost two tons; increased the yield of beans (when grown) from sixteen bushels to twenty-eight and three-tenths bushels; and increased the yield of wheat from twenty-four and three-tenths bushels to thirty-eight and four-tenths bushels per acre.

"In the legume system the minerals applied have more than doubled the value of the crops produced, have paid their cost, and made a net profit of one hundred and forty per cent. on the investment, in direct comparison with the unfertilized land.

"If we compare the average yield of turnips, barley, clover, and wheat of the last twenty years with the yield of turnips in 1848, barley in 1849, clover in 1850 and wheat in 1851 we find that on the unfertilized land in this rotation of crops in fifty years the yield of turnips has decreased from ten tons to one-half ton, and the yield of barley has decreased from forty-six to fourteen bushels, the yield of clover has decreased from two and eight-tenths tons per acre to less than one-half ton, while the yield of wheat has decreased only from thirty bushels to twenty-four bushels. As a general average the late yields are only one-third as large as they were fifty years before on the same land. Wheat grown once in four years has been the only crop worth raising on the unfertilized land during the last twenty years, and even the wheat crop has distinctly decreased in yield; although where mineral plant food was applied the yield has increased from thirty bushels, in 18851 to thirty-eight bushels as an average of the last twenty years. In the fallow rotation on the unfertilized land the yield of wheat averaged thirty-four and five-tenths bushels during the first twenty years (1848 to 1867) and twenty-three and five-tenths bushels during the last twenty years.

"On another Rothamsted field the phosphorus actually removed in fifty-five crops from well-fertilized land is two- thirds as much as the total phosphorus now contained in the plowed soil of adjoining untreated land.

"In the early 80's the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station began a four-year crop rotation, including corn, oats, wheat, and mixed clover and timothy.

"There are five plots in each of four different fields that have received no applications of plant food from the beginning. Thus, every year the crops are carefully harvested and weighed from twenty measured plots of ground that receive no treatment except the rotation of crops. The difference between the average of the first twelve years and the average of the second twelve years should represent the actual change in productive power during a period of twelve years. These averages show that the yield of corn has decreased from forty-one and seven- tenths bushels to twenty-seven and seven-tenths bushels; that the yield of oats has decreased from thirty-six and seven-tenths bushels to twenty-five bushels; that the yield of wheat has decreased only from thirteen and three-tenths bushels to twelve and eight-tenths bushels; and that the yield of hay has decreased from three thousand seventy pounds to two thousand one hundred and eighty pounds.

"As a general average of these four crops the annual value of produce from one acre has decreased from $11.05 to $8.18. Here we have information which is almost if not quite equal in value to that from the Agdell rotation field at Rothamsted. While the Rothamsted experiments cover a period of sixty years, each crop was grown but once in four years; whereas, in the Pennsylvania experiments, there have been four different series of plots, so that in twenty-four years there have been twenty-four crops of corn, twenty-four crops of oats, twenty-four crops of wheat, and twenty-four crops of hay.

"Under this four-year rotation the value of the crops produced has decreased twenty-six per cent. in twelve years. What influence will impress that fact upon the minds of American landowners? A loss amounting to more than one-fourth of the productive power of the land in a rotation with clover seeded every fourth year! This one fact is the mathematical result of four hundred and eighty other facts obtained from twenty different pieces of measured land during a period of twenty-four years.

"As an average of these twenty-four years, the addition of mineral plant food produced increases in crop yields above the unfertilized land as follows:

Corn increased forty-five per cent. Oats increased thirty- two per cent. Wheat increased forty-two per cent. Hay increased seventy-seven per cent.

"As a general average of the four crops for the twenty-four years, the produce where mineral plant food is applied, was forty-nine per cent. above the yields of the unfertilized land, although the same rotation of crops was practiced in both cases."

"Those are some of the absolute facts of science secured from practical application in the adoption and development of definite systems of permanent prosperous agriculture, and they should be made to serve this greatest and most important industry just as the established facts of mathematical and physical science are made to serve in engineering."

"I am glad to know about those long-continued experiments," said Adelaide. "They are of fascinating interest. I have been so sorry for grandma, and for papa and mamma, because of their increasing discouragement over our farm. I do hope we may profit from this fund of accumulated information which has already been secured from long years of investigation. Surely we must endeavor to avoid in America the awful conditions that already exist in the older agricultural countries, where the lands are depleted and the people are brought to greater poverty than even here in Virginia.

"But we have already reached the turn, and you have a mile to walk. How much time have you?"

"Thirty minutes yet," said Percy. "Wait just a moment. Have you read Lincoln's stories?"

"Many of them, yes."

"Here is the best one he ever told; I have copied it on a card. He told it to a meeting of farmers at the close of an address in which he urged them to study the science of agriculture and to adopt better methods of farming:

"'An Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction! "And this, too, shall pass away." And yet, let us hope, it is not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the best cultivation of the physical world beneath and around us, and the best intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.'"

"I agree with you that it is his best story," said Adelaide, as Percy finished reading and placed the card in her hand. "Now you must go or I shall insist upon taking you back to the station."

"I shall stand here and time you till you reach the next turn," he replied. "Then you will be in sight of Westover. One! Two! Three! Go!"




CHAPTER XXXIII
THE DIAGNOSIS AND PRESCRIPTION

WINTERBINE, ILLINOIS,
December 4, 1 903

Mr. T. O. Thornton, Blairville, VA.


MY DEAR SIR:--I beg to report that I returned home a few days ago and found my mother well and busy as usual. We have definitely decided that we will not accept your kind offer to sell us a part of your farm, but we appreciate nevertheless the sacrifice, at least from the standpoint of sentiment, which Mrs. Thornton and Miss Russell were willing to make, in order to permit us to secure such a farm as we might want in a splendid situation.

As a matter of fact we are thinking very seriously of purchasing a farm in Southern Illinois. My mother much prefers to remain in Illinois, and for some reasons I have the same preference on her account.

While in Washington I was fortunate enough to find that a soil survey had been completed for your county and also that a partial ultimate analysis had been made of the common loam soil of your farm, such as we sampled. Following are the number of pounds per acre for the surface soil to a depth of six and two-thirds inches,--that is, for two million pounds of soil.

61O pounds of phosphorus
13,200 pounds of potassium
1,200 pounds of magnesium
3,430 pounds of calcium

As compared with a normal fertile soil, your land is very deficient in phosphorus and magnesium, and, as you know, the soil is acid. It is better supplied with potassium than with any other important element.

I would suggest that you make liberal use of magnesian limestone,--at least two tons per acre every four or five years,--and the initial application might better be five or even ten tons per acre if you are ready to make such an investment.

I am sorry that the nitrogen content of the soil was not determined, or at least not published in the bulletin. There can be no doubt, however, that your soil is extremely deficient in organic matter and nitrogen, and you will understand that liberal use should be made of legume crops. The known nitrogen content of legumes and other crops will be a help to you in planning your crop rotation and the disposition of the crops grown.

As to phosphorus, it is safe to say that in the long run fine- ground rock phosphate will prove the best investment; but for a few years it might be best to make some use of acid phosphate in addition to the raw rock, at least until you are ready to begin turning under more organic matter with the phosphate.

There is only one other suggestion: If you wish to make a start toward better crops as soon as possible, you may well use some kainit,--say six hundred pounds per acre every four or five years, preferably applied with the phosphate. In the absence of decaying organic matter, the potassium of the soil becomes available very slowly. The kainit furnishes both potassium and magnesium in soluble form and it also contains sulfur and chlorin. As soon as you can provide plenty of decaying organic matter you will probably discontinue the use of both kainit and acid phosphate. If you sell only grains and animal products, the amount of potassium sold from the farm is very small compared with your supply of that element, which would be sufficient for one hundred bushels of corn per acre for seven hundred years.

I have some doubt if it will be worth the expense involved to have the samples of subsurface and subsoil analyzed at this time; but you might save them for future use if desired.

I shall always appreciate the kindness shown me by being permitted to enjoy your hospitality and to profit from the information you were so able to give me concerning the history and general character of your lands.

My mother asks to have her kind regards extended to you and yours.

Very sincerely yours,

PERCY JOHNSTON.

WESTOVER, January 2, 1904. Percy Johnston, Esq., Winterbine, Ill.

MY DEAR FRIEND:--We were all pleased to receive your letter informing us of your safe journey back to Illinois. I had hoped that you might find a piece of land here in the East which would suit you; but I am not surprised that you and your mother should prefer to remain in Illinois, because of your former associations and your better knowledge of the Western conditions. Northern men who come South often have serious difficulty to manage our negro labor.

I am surprised, however, that you were able to purchase, even in Southern Illinois, such prairie land as you describe for the price of $18 per acre. I supposed $190 an acre for your corn belt farm was a good price, although it is commonly reported to us that Illinois land is selling for $150 to $200 an acre.

Now, in regard to correspondence with Adelaide, let me say that we could have no objection whatever, except that it might be misunderstood, more especially, of course, by Professor Barstow. I do not think I mentioned it to you, but the fact is that the Professor and Adelaide are essentially betrothed. I do not know that the final details are perfected, but doubtless they are, for they have been much together during the Christmas weeks. The Barstows, as you probably know, are still among the most prominent people of North Carolina. Adelaide is young yet and we respect her reticence, but her mother and I have both given our consent and Professor Barstow has every reason to be satisfied with the reception he invariably receives from Adelaide.

I only mention this matter to you that you may understand why misunderstanding might arise in case of such correspondence as you suggest, even though, as Adelaide has explained, she has very naturally become interested temporarily in some of the economic and social questions relating to agriculture, and would unquestionably read your letters concerning these state and national problems with continued interest. I shall hope, however, that she may still have that satisfaction, for I am very deeply interested in all such questions, and I am particularly interested to know more of the details of your southern Illinois farm, including the invoice of the soil, which you say has been taken by your Experiment Station, and especially your definite plans for the improvement of the land. I hope the name you have chosen for your farm is not so appropriate as it would be for some of our old Virginia farms.

I shall also be under renewed obligation to you if I may occasionally submit questions concerning the best plans for the restoration of Westover to its former productiveness. I have decided at least to make another trial with alfalfa next summer, following the valuable suggestions you gave me.

In closing let me renew my assurance of our deep gratitude for the special service you so nobly rendered when fiendish danger threatened my daughter. We shall always regard you as a gentleman of the highest type. Very respectfully yours,

CHARLES WEST.

Percy read this letter hurriedly to the end, and then slowly reread it. His mother noticed that he absent-mindedly replaced the letter in the envelope instead of reading it to her as was his custom. However, he laid the letter by her plate and talked with her about the corn-shelling which was to begin as soon as the corn sheller could be brought from the neighbor's where Percy had been helping to haul the corn from the sheller to elevator at Winterbine. Dinner finished, he hurried out to complete the preparations for the afternoon's work. We have no right to follow him. His mother only saw that he went to the little granary where a few loads of corn were to be stored for future use. Yes, she saw that he closed the door as he entered. Not even his mother could see her son again a child. Women and children weep, not men. The heart strings draw tight and tighter until they tear or snap. The body is racked with the anguish of the mind. The form reels and sinks to the floor. The head bows low. Pent up tears fall like rain.--No, that cannot be. Men do not shed tears. If they are mental cowards and physical brutes they pass from hence by a short and easy route and leave the burdens of life to their wives and mothers and disgraced families. If they are Christian men they seek the only source of help.

Mrs. Johnston watched and waited--it seemed an hour, but was only a quarter of that time till the granary door opened and she saw Percy pass to the barn with a step which satisfied her mother's eye.

She drew out the letter, and from a life habit of making sure, pressed the envelope to see that it contained nothing more. She noted a slip of crumpled paper and drew it out. Upon it was written in a penciled scrawl:

"Her grandma has not consented."

She read the letter, stood for a moment as in meditation, then replaced the slip and letter in the envelope, and laid it on Percy's desk. The letter was plainly a man's handwriting. The envelope was addressed in a bold hand that was clearly not Mr. West's writing.



CHAPTER XXXIV
PLANNING FOR LIFE

HEART-OF-EGYPT, ILLINOIS, June 16, 1904.

Mr. Charles West,
Blue Mound, Va.

MY DEAR SIR:--I have delayed writing to you in regard to the plans for Poorland Farm, until I could feel that we are able at least to make an outline of tentative nature. The labor problem of a farm of three hundred and twenty acres is of course very different from that on forty acres, and we are not yet fully decided regarding our crop rotation and the disposition of the crops produced (or hoped for). I realize that to rebuild in my life what another has torn down during his life is a task the end of which can hardly be even dimly foreshadowed. Some friends are already beginning to ask me what results I am getting, and they apparently feel that we must succeed or fail with a trial of a full season. I have said to them that I have no objection whatever to discussing our plans at any time, so far as we are yet able to make plans, but that I shall not be ready to discuss results with anyone until we begin to secure crop yields in the third rotation. This means that I am not expecting the benefits of a six-year rotation of crops before the rotation has been actually practiced. You will understand of course that, if all your land had been cropped with little or no change, for all its history, you would require six or eight years' time before you would be able to grow a crop of corn on land that had been pastured for six or eight years; but some people seem to take it for granted that one can adopt a six-year rotation and enjoy the full benefits of it the first season.

I remember that you were surprised that I could buy a level upland farm even in this part of Illinois for $18 an acre; but you will probably be more surprised to learn that this farm had not paid the previous owners two per cent. interest on $18 an acre as an average of the last five years. In fact, sixty acres of it had grown no crops for the last five years. It was largely managed by tenants on the basis of share rent, and because of this I have been able to secure the records of several years.

I at least had some satisfaction in purchasing this farm, for the real estate men were left without a single "talking point." I insisted that I wanted the poorest prairie farm in "Egypt," and whenever they began to tell me that the soil on a certain farm was really above the average, or that the land had been well cared for until recently, or that it had been fertilized a good deal, etc., I at once informed them that any advantage of that sort completely disqualified any farm for me; and that they need not talk to me about any farms except those that represented the poorest and most abused in Southern Illinois.

I may say, however, that $20 an acre is about the average price of the average land. I had an option on a three hundred and sixty acre farm cornering the corporation limits of the County Seat for $30 an acre, and all agreed that the farm was above the average in quality.

Heart-of-Egypt is a small station on the double track of the Chicago-New Orleans line of the Illinois Central, and there are three other railroads passing through our County Seat. Poorland Farm is less than two miles from Heart-of-Egypt and only five miles from the County Seat, with level roads to both.

As to the soil, I may say that in some respects it is poorer than yours, but in others not so poor. The amount of plant food contained in six and two-thirds inches of the surface soil of an acre, representing two million pounds of soil, are as follows:

2,880 pounds of nitrogen
840 pounds of phosphorus
24,940 pounds of potassium
6,740 pounds of magnesium
14,660 pounds of calcium

By referring to the invoice of your most common land, you will see that Westover is richer in phosphorus, in magnesium, and in calcium, than Poorland Farm. But, while your soil contains a half more of that rare element phosphorus, ours contains a half more of the abundant element potassium. In the supply of nitrogen we have a distinct advantage, because our soil contains nearly three times as much as your most common cultivated land, and even twice as much as your level upland soil, which you consider too poor for farming, but in which phosphorus and not nitrogen must be the first limiting element, the same as with ours.

The fact is that the nitrogen problem in the East was one of the reasons why we have chosen to locate in Southern Illinois. I am confident that the level lands I saw about Blairville and over in Maryland are more deficient in organic matter and nitrogen than your uncultivated level upland, and probably even more deficient than your common gently sloping cultivated lands, because of your long rotation with much opportunity for nitrogen fixation by such legumes will grow in your meadows and pastures, including the red clover which you regularly sow, the white clover, which is very persistent, and the Japan clover, which it seems to me has really benefited you more than the others.

To me a difference in nitrogen content of two thousand pounds per acre signifies a good deal. It plainly signifies a hundred years' of "working the soil for all that's in it," beyond what has yet been done to our "Egypt." The cost of two thousand pounds of nitrogen in sodium nitrate would be at least $300 and even that would not include the organic matter, which has value for its own sake because of the power of its decomposition products to liberate the mineral elements from the soil, as witness the most common upland soils of St. Mary county, Maryland, with a phosphorus content reduced to one hundred and sixty pounds per acre in two million pounds of the ignited soil. The ten-inch plows of Maryland, the twelve-inch of Southern Illinois, the fourteen-inch of the corn belt, and the sixteen-inch of the newer regions of the Northwest, signify something as to the influence of organic matter upon the horsepower required in tillage; and the organic matter also has a value because it increases the power of the soil to absorb and retain moisture and to resist surface washing and "running together" to form the hard surface crust.

To think of applying two thousand pounds of nitrogen by plowing under two hundred tons of manure or forty tons of clover per acre at least requires a "big think," as my Swede man would say.

Of course, with our western life and cosmopolitan population, where "a man's a man for a' that," mother feels that it would not be easy for us to fit into your somewhat distinctly stratified society. We would not be "colored" if we could, and perhaps we could not be aristocratic if we would; and the opportunity to become, or, perhaps I should say, to remain, "poor white trash," though wide open, is not very alluring. I realize, of course, that there are some whole-souled people like the West's and Thornton's, but I also found some of the tribe of Jones, and I have much doubt as to the social standing of one who would feel obliged to demonstrate that he could spread more manure in a day than his hired nigger.

My Swede and I are like brothers; we clean stables together and talk politics, science, and agriculture. In fact he is as much interested as I am in the building up of Poorland Farm, and has already contributed some very practical suggestions. I pay him moderate wages and a small percentage of the farm receipts after deducting certain expenses which he can help to keep as low as possible, such as for labor, repairs, and purchase of feed and new tools, but without deducting the taxes or interest on investment or the cost of any permanent improvements, such as the expense for limestone, phosphate, new fences and buildings, and breeding stock.

Referring again to the invoice of the soil, I may say that the percentage of the mineral plant foods increases with depth, the same as in your soil, but not to such an extent, and with one exception. The phosphorus content of our surface soil is greater than that of the subsurface, but below the subsurface the phosphorus again increases. This is probably due to the fact that the prairie grasses that grew here for centuries extracted some phosphorus from the subsurface in which their roots fed to some extent, and left it in the organic residues which accumulated in the surface soil.

Aside from the difference in organic matter, the physical character of our soil is distinctly inferior to the loam soils about Blairville and Leonardtown. We have a very satisfactory silt loam surface, but the structure of our subsoil is quite objectionable. It is a tight clay through which water passes very slowly, so slowly that the practicability of using tile-drainage is still questioned by the State University, although the experiments which the University soil investigators have already started in several counties here in "Egypt" will ultimately furnish us positive knowledge along this line.

As for me, I purpose making no experiments, whatever. I do not see how I or any other farmer can afford to put our limited funds into experiments, especially when we often lack the facilities for taking the exact and complete data that are needed. It takes time and labor and some equipment to make accurate measurements, to weigh every pound of fertilizer applied and every crop carefully harvested from measured and carefully seeded areas, especially selected because of their uniform and representative character. I think this is public business and it is best done by the State for the benefit of all.

I have heard narrow politicians call it class legislation to appropriate funds for such agricultural investigations, but the fact is that to investigate the soil and to insure an abundant use of limestone, phosphate, or other necessary materials required for the improvement and permanent maintenance of the fertility of the soil is legislation for all the people, both now and hereafter. Would that our Statesmen would think as much of maintaining this most important national resource, as they do of maintaining our national honor by means of battleships and an army and navy supported at an expense of three hundred million dollars a year, sufficient to furnish ten tons of limestone to every acre of Virginia land, an amount twenty times the Nation's appropriation for agriculture; and even this is largely used in getting new lands ready for the bleeding process, instead of reviving those that have been practically bled to death.

As for me, I shall simply take the results which prove profitable on the accurately conducted experiment fields of the University of Illinois, one of which is located only seven miles from Poorland Farm, and on the same type of soil, I shall try to profit by that positive information, and await the accumulation of conclusive data relating to tile-drainage and other possible improvements of uncertain practicability for "Egypt."

Say, but our soil is acid! The University soil survey men say that the acidity is positive in the surface, comparative in the subsurface, and superlative in the subsoil. Two of them insisted that the subsoil has an acid taste. The analysis of a set of soil samples collected near Heart-of-Egypt shows that to neutralize the acidity of the surface soil will require seven hundred and eighty pounds of limestone per acre, while three tons are required for the first twenty inches, and sixteen tons for the next twenty inches. The tight clay stratum reaches from about twenty to thirty-six inches. Above this is a flour-like gray layer varying in thickness from an inch to ten inches, but below the tight clay the subsoil seems to be more porous, and I am hoping that we may lay tile just below the tight clay and then puncture that clay stratum with red clover roots and thus improve the physical condition of the soil. I asked Mr. Secor, a friend who operates a coal mine,--and farms for recreation,--if he thought alfalfa could be raised on this type of soil. He replied: " That depends on what kind of a gimlet it has on its tap root.'

Some of the farmers down here tell me confidentially that "hardpan" has been found on their neighbors' farms, but I have not talked with any one who has any on his own farm. I am very glad the University has settled the matter very much to the comfort of us "Egyptians," by reporting that no true "hardpan" exists in Illinois, although there are extensive areas underlain with tight clay, "of whom, as it were, we are which."

I am glad that the nitrogen-fixing and nitrifying bacteria do business chicfly in the surface soil, because we are not prepared to correct the acidity to any very great depth.

The present plan is to practice a six-year rotation on six forty-acre fields, as follows:

First year--Corn (and legume catch crop).

Second year--Part oats or barley, part cowpeas or soy beans.

Third year--Wheat.

Fourth year--Clover, or clover and timothy.

Fifth year--Wheat, or clover and timothy.

Sixth year--Clover, or clover and timothy.

This plan may be a grain system where wheat is grown the fifth year, only clover seed being harvested the fourth and sixth years, or it may be changed to a live-stock system by having clover and timothy for pasture and meadow the last three years, which may be best for a time, perhaps, if we find it too hard to care for eighty acres of wheat on poorly drained land.

In somewhat greater detail the system may be developed we hope about as follows:

First year: Corn, with mixed legumes, seeded at the time of the last cultivation, on perhaps one-half of the field. These legumes may include some cowpeas and soy beans and some sweet clover, but that is not yet fully decided upon.

Second year: Oats (part barley, perhaps) on twenty acres, cowpeas on ten acres, and soy beans on ten acres. The peas and beans are to be seeded on the twenty acres where the catch crop of legumes is to be plowed under as late in the spring as practicable.

Third year: Wheat with alsike on twenty acres and red clover on the other twenty, seeded in the early spring. If necessary to prevent the clover or weeds from seeding, the field will be clipped about the last of August.

Fourth year: Harvest the red clover for hay and the alsike for seed, and apply limestone after plowing early for wheat.

Fifth year: Wheat, with alsike and red clover seeded and clipped as before.

Sixth year: Pasture in early summer, then clip if necessary to secure uniformity, and later harvest the red clover for seed. Manure may be applied to any part of this field from the time of wheat harvest the previous year until the close of the pasture period. Then it may be applied to the alsike only until the red clover seed crop is removed, and then again to any part of the field, which may also be used for fall pasture. To this field the threshed clover straw and all other straw not needed for feed and bedding will be applied. The application of raw phosphate will be made to this field, and all of this material plowed under for corn.

The second six years is to be a repetition of the first, except that the alsike and red clover will be interchanged, so as to avoid the development of clover sickness if possible; and to keep the soil uniform we may interchange the oats with the peas and beans.

This system provides for the following crops each year:

40 acres of corn;
20 acres of oats;
1O acres of cowpeas for hay
1O acres of soy beans for seed
8o acres of wheat
20 acres of red clover for hay
20 acres of alsike for seed
20 acres of red clover for seed
20 acres of alsike for pasture, except from June to August.

We also have some permanent pasture which we may use at any time that may seem best. If necessary we may cut all the clover for hay the fourth year, and we may pasture all summer the sixth year. We can pasture the corn stalks during the fall and winter when the ground is in suitable condition.

We plan to raise our own horses and perhaps some to sell. In addition we may raise a few dairy cows for market, but will do little dairying ourselves.

We expect to sell wheat and some corn, and if successful we shall sell some soy beans, alsike seed, and red clover seed.

How soon we shall be able to get this system fully under way I shall not try to predict; but we shall work toward this end unless we think we have good reason to modify the plan.

I hope to make the initial application of limestone five tons per acre, but after the first six years this will be reduced to two or three tons. I also plan to apply at least one ton per acre of fine-ground raw phosphate every six years until the phosphorus content of the plowed soil approaches two thousand pounds per acre, after which the applications will probably be reduced to about one-half ton per acre each rotation.

There are three things that mother and I are fully decided upon:

First, that we shall use ground limestone in sufficient amounts to make the soil a suitable home for clover.

Second, that we shall apply fine-ground rock phosphate in such amounts as to positively enrich our soil in that very deficient element.

Third, that we shall reserve a three-rod strip across every forty-acre field as an untreated check strip to which neither limestone nor phosphate shall ever be applied, and that we shall reserve another three-rod strip to which limestone is applied without phosphate, while the remaining thirty-seven acres are to receive both limestone and phosphate.

Thus we shall always have the satisfaction of seeing whatever clearly apparent effects are produced by this fundamental treatment, even though we may not be able to bother with harvesting these check strips separate from the rest of the field.

We have based our decision regarding the use of ground limestone very largely upon the long-continued work of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station as to the comparative effects of ground limestone and burned lime, which is supported, to be sure, by all comparative tests so far as our Illinois soil investigators have been able to learn.

The practicability and economy of using the fineground natural phosphate has been even more conclusively established, as you already know, by the concordant results of half a dozen state experiment stations. There are only two objections to the use of the raw phosphate. One of these is the short-sighted plan or policy of the average farmer, and the other is the combined influence of about four-hundred fertilizer manufacturers who prefer to sell, quite naturally, perhaps, two tons of acid phosphate for $30, or four tons of so-called "complete" fertilizer for $70 to $90, rather than to see the farmer buy direct from the phosphate mine one ton of fine-ground raw rock phosphate in which he receives the same amount of phosphorus, at a cost of $7 to $9.

Until we can provide a greater abundance of decaying organic matter we may make some temporary use of kainit, in case the experiments conducted by the state show that it is profitable to do so.

In a laboratory experiment, made at college it was shown that when raw phosphate was shaken with water and then filtered, the filtrate contained practically no dissolved phosphorus; but, if a dilute solution of such salts as exist in kainit was used in place of pure water, then the filtrate would contain very appreciable amounts of phosphorus.

In addition to this benefit, the kainit will furnish some readily available potassium, magnesium, and sulfur; and, by purchasing kainit in carload lots, the potassium will cost us less than it would in the form of the more expensive potassium chlorid or potassium sulfate purchased in ton lots. Of course we do not need this in order to add to our total stock of potassium, but more especially I think to assist in liberating phosphorus from the raw phosphate which is naturally contained in the soil and which we shall also apply to the soil, unless the Government permits the fertilizer trusts to get such complete control of our great natural phosphate deposits that they make it impossible for farmers to secure the fine-ground rock at a reasonable cost, which ought not, I would say, to be more than one hundred per cent. net profit above the expense of mining, grinding, and transportation. We may feel safe upon the matter of transportation rates, for the railroads are operated by men of large enough vision to see that the positive and permanent maintenance of the fertility of the soil is the key to their own continued prosperity, and some of them are already beginning to understand that the supply of phosphorus is the master key to the whole industrial structure of America; for, with a failing supply of phosphorus, neither agriculture nor any dependent industry can permanently prosper in this great country.

If we retain the straw on the farm and sell only the grain, the supply of potassium in the surface soil of Poorland Farm is sufficient to meet the needs of a fifty bushel crop of wheat per acre every year for nineteen hundred and twenty years, or longer than the time that has passed since the Master walked among men on the earth; whereas, the total phosphorus content of the same soil is sufficient for only seventy such crops, or for as long as the full life of one man. Keep in mind that Poorland Farm is near Heart-of-Egypt, and that this is the common soil of our "Egyptian Empire," which contains more cultivable land than all New England, has the climate of Virginia, and a network of railroads scarcely equalled in any other section of this country, and in addition it is more than half surrounded by great navigable rivers.

On Poorland Farm there are seven forty-acre fields which are at least as nearly level as they ought to be to permit good surface drainage, and there is no need that a single hill of corn should be omitted on any one of these seven fields; and I am confident that with an adequate supply of raw phosphate rock and magnesian limestone and a liberal use of legume crops this land can be made to pay interest on $300 an acre.

Why not? At Rothamsted, England, they have averaged thirty-eight and four-tenths bushels of wheat per acre during the last twenty years in an experiment extending over sixty years, and they have done this without a forkful of manure or a pound of purchased nitrogen. Why not? The wheat alone from eighty acres of land, if it yielded forty bushels per acre and sold at $1 a bushel, would pay nearly five per cent. interest on $300 an acre for the entire two hundred and forty acres used in my suggested rotation.

Aye, but there is one other very essential requirement: To wit, a world of work.

Hoping to hear from you, and especially about your alfalfa, I am,

Very sincerely yours,

PERCY JOHNSTON.




CHAPTER XXXV
SEALED LIPS

No one realized more than Percy Johnston that toleration of life itself was possible to him only because of the world of work that he found always at hand in connection with his abiding faith and interest in the upbuilding of Poorland Farm. He had accepted Adelaide's sweet smile and lack of apparent disapproval with confidence that he might at least have an opportunity to try to win her love. As he was permitted at the parting to look for more than an instant into those alluring eyes, he felt so sure that they expressed something more than friendship or gratitude for him. He had felt the more confidence because he thought he knew that she would not permit him to humiliate himself by asking and failing to receive from her father permission to write to her, when she could easily in her own womanly way have discouraged such a thought at once. Had she not insisted upon driving slowly back to the turn in the road, and did he not feel the absence of a previous reserve?

Oh, misleading imagination. The will is truly the father of thought and faith. Percy knew as he parted from Adelaide that he had left with her the love of heart and mind of one whose life had developed in him the character which does nothing by halves. His love had multiplied with the distance as he journeyed westward, with a great new pleasure which life seemed to hold before him and with a pardonable confidence in its achievement.

He had written Mr. West a week after his return in a way which would not fail of understanding if his hopes were justified. The belated reply which reached him after holidays was accepted as final. His pride was humiliated and the sweetest dream of his life abruptly ended. He felt the more helpless and the more deeply wounded because of Mr. West's reference to his special service in the protection he had once rendered to Adelaide. It continually reminded him that, as the highest type of gentleman, he should do nothing that could be construed as an endeavor to take advantage of the consideration to which that act might seem to entitle him. Bound and buried in the deepest dungeon, waiting only for the announcement from his of the day of his execution. This was his mental attitude as the months passed and he began to receive an occasional letter from Mr. West, in each of which he looked for the news of Adelaide's marriage.

In Mrs. Johnston a feeling of hatred had developed for Adelaide. She was certain that she had marred the happiness of her son. The heartlessness of a flirt who could trifle with the affection of one who had a right to assume in her an honor equal to his own deserved only to be hated with even righteous hatred. She saw the scrawled note which she knew Percy had not seen, but what did it signify? An eccentric old lady's penchant for match making ? Perhaps she was even more guilty than the girl in attempting to lead Percy to see in Adelaide more than he ought. She might even take an old flirt's delight in the mere number of conquests made by her granddaughter. Or was the scrawled note slipped into the envelope by a prank- playing fourteen-year-old brother? In any case was it wise that Percy should see the note? She could probably do nothing better than to leave it with the letter. Even if the girl were worthy, Percy could never hope to win one of her class, whose pride of ancestry is their bread of life. It might not have been quite so, perhaps, if Percy had only selected some more respected profession. Why should not he have become a college professor?