The story of the soil, from the basis of absolute science and real life

Preface

Truth Is better than fiction; and this true story of the soil is written in co-operation with the Press of America and in competition with popular fiction.

The scenes described exist; the references given can all be found and verified; and the data quoted are exact, although some of the story dates antedate the scientific data.

As a rule the names employed are substitutes, but the general localities are as specified.

If the Story of the Soil should ever fall into the hands of any Individual who suspects that he has contributed to Its Information, the author begs that he will accept as belonging to himself every gracious attribute and take it for granted that anything of opposite savor was due to autosuggestion.

Cyril G. Hopkins.

Contents

Chapter Page

/ The Old South n

// Forty Acres in the Corn Belt 14

CHAPTER I The Old South

PERCY JOHNSTON stood waiting on the broad veranda of an old-style Southern home, on a bright November day in 1903. He had just come from Blue Mound Station, three miles away, with suit-case in hand.

"Would it be possible for me to secure room and board here for a few days?" he inquired of the elderly woman who answered his knock.

"Would it be possible?" she repeated, apparently asking herself the question, while she scanned the face of her visitor with kindly eyes that seemed to look beneath the surface.

"I beg your pardon, my name is Johnston,— Percy Johnston — " he said with some embarrassment and hesitation, realizing from her speech and manner that he was not addressing a servant.

"No pardon is needed for that name," she interrupted; "Johnston is a name we're mighty proud of here in the South."

"But I am from the West," he said. "We're proud of the West, too; and you should feel right welcome here, for this is *Westovcr,' " waving her hand toward the broad fields surrounding the old mansion house. "I am Mrs. West, or at least I used to be. Perhaps the title better belongs to my son's wife at the present time; while I am mother, grandma, and great-grandmother.

II

"Yes, sir, you will be very welcome to share our home for a few days if you wish; and we'll take you as a boarder. We used to entertain my husband's friends from Richmond, — and from Washington, too, before the sixties; but since then we have grown poor, and of late years we take some summer boarders. They have all returned to the city, however, the last of them having left only yesterday; so you can have as many rooms as you like.

"Adelaide!" she called.

A rugged girl of seventeen entered the hall from a rear room.

"This is my granddaughter, Adelaide, Mr. Johnston."

Percy looked into her eyes for an instant; then her lashes dropped. He remembered afterward that they were like her grandmothers, and he found himself repeating, "The eye is the window of the soul."

"My dear, will you ask Wilkes to show Mr. Johnston to the southwest room, and to put a fire in the grate and warm water in the pitcher?"

"Thank you, that will not be necessary," said Percy. "I wish to see and learn as much as possible of the country hereabout, and particularly of the farm lands; and, if I may leave my suit-case to be sent to my room when convenient, I shall take a walk,— perhaps a long walk. When should I be back to supper."

"At six or half past. My son Charles has gone to Montplain, but he will be home for dinner. He knows the lands all about here and will be glad, I am sure, to give you any information possible."

With rapid strides Percy followed the private lane to the open fields of Westover.

"Is he a cowboy, Grandma?" asked Adelaide, in a tone which did not suggest a very high regard for

THE OLD SOUTH 13

cowboys. "Anyway," she continued, detecting a shade of disapproval in the grandmother's face, *'he has a cowboy's hat, but he doesn't wear buckskin trousers or spurs."

Percy's hat was a relic of college life. Two years before he had completed the agricultural course at one of the state universities in the corn belt. Somewhat above the average in size, well proportioned, accustomed to the heaviest farm work, and trained in football at college, he was a sturdy young giant, — "strong as an ox and quick as lightning," in the exaggerated language of his football admirers.

CHAPTER II Forty Acres in the Corn Belt

PERCY JOHNSTON'S grandfather had gone west from "York State" and secured from the federal government a i6o-acre "Claim" of the rich corn belt land. His father had received through inheritance only 40 acres of this; and, marrying his choice from the choir of the local Lutheran congregation, he had farmed his forty and an adjoining eighty acres, "rented on shares," for only three years, when he was taken with pneumonia from exposure and overwork, and died within a week.

Percy was scarcely a year old when his father was laid in the grave; but to the sorrowing mother he was all that life held dear. Existence seemed possible to her only because she could bestow upon him her double affection and because the double duties which she took upon herself completely occupied her time.

She was not in immediate financial need, for her husband had been able to put some money in the bank during the last year, after having paid for his "outfit;" the forty-acre farm was free from debt, but under the law it must remain the joint property of mother and child for twenty years.

Wisely or unwisely she rejected every opportunity presented that would have given Percy a stepfather. As daughter and wife she had learned much of the art of agriculture, and, after some consultation with a neighbor who seemed to be successful, she made her own plans.

In her make up, sentiment was balanced with sense. Even as a young wife she had sometimes driven th«

FORTY ACRES IN THE CORN BELT 15

mower or the sell-binder to *'help-out," and she had found pleasure and health In such hours of out-door life. "I can work and not overwork," she said to her friends ; and in any case the crops seemed to grow better under the eye of the mistress.

Some years she employed a neighbor boy or girl, and always hired such other help as she needed. Prices were sometimes low and crops were not always good; and only widowed mothers can know the full story of her labor, love and sacrifice. With Percy's help he was sent to school and finally to the university, choosing for himself the agricultural college, much to the surprise and disappointment of his devoted mother.

"Why," she asked, "why should my son go to college to study agriculture? Have you not studied farming in the practical school of experience all your life? Surely we have done as much as could be done on our own little farm; and you have also had the benefit of the longer experience of our best farmers hereabout, and of the accumulated wisdom of our ancestors. Oh, I had hoped and truly believed that you would become interested in engineering, or in medicine, or may be in the law. I cannot understand why you should think of going to college to study farming. Surely you already know more than the college professors do about agriculture."

Percy's mother had too much good sense to have raised a spoiled boy. He had been taught to work and to think for himself. She loved her boy far better than her own life, — loved as only a widowed mother can who has risked her life for him, and who has given to him all her thought and all her energy from the best twenty years of her own life; but she had never let herself enjoy that kind of selfishness which prompts a mother to do for her child what he should be taught to do for himself. Despite his natural love of sport and the severe trials he had often brought to her patience and perseverance during his boyhood days, he had reached a development with the advance of youth that satisfied her high ideal. His love and appreciation and tender care for her repaid her every day, she told herself, for all the years of watching, working, waiting. Never before had he withstood her positive wish and final judgment.

And yet it was she who had told him that he alone must choose his life work and his college course in preparation for that work; but, after the years of toil, she had not dreamed that he would choose the farm life.

"My darling boy," she continued, "it leads to nothing. This little farm is poorer to-day than it was when your dear father and I came here to live and labor. To be sure, the lower field still grows as good or better crops than ever; but I can remember when that field was so wet and swampy that it could not be cultivated, and it was in the work of ditching and tiling that field," she sobbed, "that your father took the sickness that caused his death."

Tears were in Percy's eyes as he put his arm about his mother and wiped her tears away.

"But I must tell you what I know to be the truth," she went on quickly. "The older fields that your grandfather cultivated are less productive now^ than when he received them from our generous government. Indeed, it was your father's plan to continue to farm here only for a few years longer until he could save enough to enable him, with what we could have gotten from the sale of our own forty, to go farther west and purchase a large farm of virgin soil. He realized, my Son, that even that part of his father's farm that was first put under cultivation was becoming distinctly reduced in productiveness. He remembered, too, the

FORTY ACRES IN THE CORN BELT 17

stories often repeated by your grandfather of the run-down condition of the once exceedingly fertile soils of the Mohawk Valley and other parts of New York State.

"And you know, Percy, there were many Dutch farmers settled in New York. They were probably the best farmers among all who came to America from the Old World. I have heard your grandfather explain their use of crop rotation, and they understood well the value of clover and farm fertilizers. But with all of their skill and knowledge, the land grew poor, and now the very farm upon which Grandpa was born is not worth as much as the actual cost of the farm buildings. I hope you will consider all of this. The farm life is so unpromising for you, and there are such great opportunities for success in other lines. Still I feel that you must decide this question for yourself, my Son, but tell me why you would choose the life and work of a farmer."

CHAPTER III Lincoln's View of Agriculture

PERCY had listened without interrupting, grieved at her disappointment, and open to any reasoning that might change his mind.

"Mother dearest," he said, "it was a year ago that you said I would have only till this fall to decide upon my college course and that it should be a special preparation for my life work. I have given much thought to it. You said that I should choose for myself, and I have not consulted much with others, but I have tried to consider the matter from different points of view.

"You know the Christmas present you gave me of the Lincoln books?"

"Yes, I know, and you have read them so much. I could not get you many books, but I knew there could be nothing better for my boy to read than the thoughts of that noble man. But, Percy dear, Lincoln was a lawyer, and he rose from the lowest walk in life to the highest position in the country, and with much less preparation than my own boy will have. Suppose he had remained a farmer ! Surely no such success could ever have been reached. I am not so foolish as to have any such high hopes for you, Percy; but if you can only put yourself in the way of opportunity, and make such preparation as you can to fill with credit some position of responsibility that may be offered you! I had truly hoped that your study of Lincoln's life would influence yours. To me Lincoln was the noblest of all the noble men of our history,

i8

LINCOLN'S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE 19

and I doubt not of all history, save Him who came to redeem the world."

Percy stepped to his little homemade bookcase and took a volume from the Lincoln set.

"May I read you some words of Lincoln?" he asked.

"Oh yes," she answered wonderingly.

"On September 30th, 1859," said Percy, "Lincoln gave an address at Milwaukee, before the State Agricultural Society of Wisconsin, and of all the addresses of Lincoln it seems to me that this Is the greatest, because It deals with the greatest material problem of the United States. I think I have scarcely heard a public address in which the speaker has not dwelt upon the fact that the farmer must feed and clothe the world; and it seems to me that the missionaries always speak of the famines and starvation of so many people in India and other old countries. Do you remember the lecture by the medical missionary? Well, would it not be better to send agricultural missionaries to India and China to teach those people how to raise crops?

"I have read and reread this address more than any other in the Lincoln set. Let me read you some of the paragraphs I have marked.

"After making some introductory remarks about the value of agricultural fairs, Lincoln began his address as follows:

" *I presume I am not expected to employ the time assigned me In the mere flattery of the farmers as a class. My opinion of them, is that, In proportion to numbers, they are neither better nor worse than other people. In the nature of things they are more numerous than any other class; and I believe there are really more attempts at flattering them than any other, the reason of which I cannot perceive, unless it be to THE STORY OF THE SOIL

that they can cast more votes than any other. On reflection, I am not quite sure that there is not cause of suspicion against you in selecting me, in some sort a politician and in no sort a farmer, to address you.

*' 'But farmers being the most numerous class, it follows that their interest is the largest interest. It also follows that that interest is most worthy of all to be cherished and cultivated— that if there be inevitable conflict between that interest and any other, that other should yield.

" 'Again, I suppose that it is not expected of me to impart to you much specific information on agriculture. You have no reason to believe, and do not believe, that I possess It; if that were what you seek in this address, any one of your own number or class would be more able to furnish it. You, perhaps, do expect me to give some general interest to the occasion, and to make some general suggestions on practical matters. I shall attempt nothing more. And in such suggestions by me, quite likely very little will be new to you, and a large part of the rest will be possibly already knoAvn to be erroneous.

" 'My first suggestion is an inquiry as to the effect of greater thoroughness in all the departments of agriculture than now prevails in the Northwest — perhaps I might say in America. To speak entirely within bounds, It Is known that fifty bushels of wheat, or one hundred bushels of Indian corn, can be produced from an acre.' "

Percy paused: "You know, Mother, that our corn has averaged some less than fifty bushels per acre for the last five years, and as you say, the lower field has been much better than the old land, and I think you are quite right In your belief that as an average the land is growing poorer although we cultivate better than we used to do, and our seed corn is of the best variety and saved with much care. But let me read

LINCOLN'S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE 21

further :

*' 'Less than a year ago I saw It stated that a man, by extraordinary care and labor, had produced of wheat what was equal to two hundred bushels from an acre. But take fifty of wheat, and one hundred of corn, to be the possibility, and compare it with the actual crops of the country. Many years ago I saw it stated, in a patent office report, that eighteen bushels was the average crop throughout the United States; and this year an intelligent farmer of Illinois assured me that he did not believe the land harvested in that State this season had yielded more than an average of eight bushels to the acre; much was cut, and then abandoned as not worth threshing, and much was abandoned as not worth cutting.' "

''I know It Is true," said the mother, "that wheat was once very much grown in Central and Northern Illinois, but 1859 must have been an unusually poor year, for It was grown for twenty years after that, although It finally failed so completely that Its cultivation has been practically abandoned in those sections for nearly twenty years. However, the chinch bugs were a very Important factor In discouraging wheat growing and the land has been very good for corn, especially since the tile-drainage was put In; but on the whole Is It not as I told you?"

"But note these statements," said Percy, turning again to the book:

" 'It is true that heretofore we have had better crops with no better cultivation, but I believe that It Is also true that the soil has never been pushed up to one-half of its capacity.

" 'What would be the effect upon the farming Interest to push the soil up to something near its full capacity?' "

"But what can he mean," said the mother. "How can anyone do better than we have done ? We change our crops, and sow clover with the oats, and return as much as we can to the land. But let me hear further what Lincoln said:'*

"Yes, Mother, this is what he said:

*' 'Unquestionably it will take more labor to produce fifty bushels of wheat from an acre than it will to produce ten bushels from the same acre ; but will it take more labor to produce fifty bushels from one acre than from five? Unquestionably thorough cultivation will require more labor to the acre ; but will it require more to the bushel? If it should require just as much to the bushel, there are some probable, and several certain, advantages in favor of the thorough practice. It is probable it would develop those unknown causes which of late years have cut down our crops below their former average. It is almost certain, I think, that by deeper plowing, analysis of the soils, experiments with manures and varieties of seeds, observance of seasons, and the like, these causes would be discovered and remedied. It is certain that thorough cultivation would spare half, or more than half, the cost of land, simply because the same produce would be got from half, or frorn less than half, the quantity of land. This proposition is self-evident, and can be made no plainer by repetitions or illustrations. The cost of land is a great item, even in new countries, and it constantly grows greater and greater, in comparison with other items, as the country grows older.' "

Percy paused and said : "If I understand correctly these words of Lincoln, the land need not become poor. But I do not know why land becomes poor. I do not know what the soil contains, nor do I know what corn is made of. We plow the ground and plant the seed and cultivate and harvest the crop, but I do not know what the corn crop, or any crop, takes from the soil. I want to learn how to analyze the soil and

LINCOLN^S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE 23

crop and to find out If possible why soils become poor, in order, as Lincoln suggests, that the cause may be discovered and remedied."

"It may be that the college professors could teach you in that way," said the mother, "but you know the farm life Is so full of work and so empty of mental culture."

"I used to think so too," said Percy, "but I fear we have worked too much with our hands and too little with our minds ; that we have done much work in blindness as to the actual causes that control our crop yields; and that we have not found the mental culture that may be found in the farm life. Let me read again. These are Lincoln's words :

" 'No other human occupation opens so wide a field for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor with cultivated thought, as agriculture. I know nothing so pleasant to the mind as the discovery of anything that is at once new and valuable— nothing that so lightens and sweetens toil as the hopeful pursuit of such discovery. And how vast and how varied a field is agriculture for such discovery! The mind, already trained to thought in the country school, or higher school, cannot fail to find there an exhaustless source of enjoyment. Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two where there was but one is both a profit and a pleasure. And not grass alone, but soils, seeds, and seasons — hedges, ditches, and fences— draining, droughts, and Irrigation — plowing, hoeing, and harrowing— reaping, mowing, and threshing — saving crops, pests of crops, diseases of crops, and what will prevent or cure them — implements, utensils, and machines, their relative merits, and how to improve them — hogs, horses, and cattle — sheep, goats and poultry— trees, shrubs, fruits, plants, and flowers— the thousand things of which these are specimens— each a world of study within Itself.

*' 'In all this book learning is available. A capacity and taste for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so : it gives a relish and facility for successfully pursuing the unsolved ones. The rudiments of science are available, and highly available. Some knowledge of botany assists in dealing with the vegetable world— with all growing crops. Chemistry assists in the analysis of soils, selection and application of manures, and in numerous other ways. The mechanical branches of natural philosophy are ready help in almost everything, but especially in reference to implements and machinery.

" 'The thought recurs that education — cultivated thought— can best be combined with agricultural labor, on the principle of thorough work; that careless, half-performed, slovenly work makes no place for such combination; and thorough work, again, renders sufficient the smallest quantity of ground to each man; and this, again, conforms to what must occur in a world less inclined to wars and more devoted to the arts of peace than heretofore. Population must increase rapidly, more rapidly than in former times, and ere long the most valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving a comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of soil. No community whose every member possesses this art, can ever be the victim of oppression in any of its forms. Such community will be alike independent of crowned kings, money kings, and land kings.' "

CHAPTER IV Life's Choice

PERCY read these words as though they were his own; and perhaps we may say they were his own, for, as Emerson says: "Thought is the property of him who can entertain it."

The mother listened, first with wonder; then with deepened interest, which changed to admiration for the language and for her son, who seemed to be filled with the spirit which had led Lincoln to see the problems and the possibilities of the farm life in a light that was wholly new.

"Surely those are noble thoughts," she said, "from a noble and wise man. I shall only hope that you will find some opportunity to make the best possible of your life. We have such a small farm, and the land hereabout is all so high in price that to enlarge the farm seems almost hopeless. In part because of this difl^culty it had seemed to me that greater opportunities might be open for you in other lines. Don't you feel that you will be greatly handicapped in the beginning?"

"Perhaps," said Percy, "in some ways: but not in other ways. We hear on every hand that this is an age of specialists, that the most successful man cannot take time to prepare himself well for many different lines of work; that he must make the best possible preparation in some one line for which he may have special talent or special interest; and then endeavor to go farther in that line than any one has gone before. When I first wrote to the State University I asked how long a time would likely be required for me to complete all the subjects that are taught there, and the registrar replied that, if I could carry heavy work every year, I might hope to take all the courses now offered in about seventy years. In considering this point of preparation for future work, it has seemed to me that if I leave the farm life and devote myself to law or to engineering, I must in large measure sacrifice about ten years of valuable experience in practical agriculture. I have learned enough about farming so that I can manage almost as well as the neighbors; and without this knowledge, gathered, as you say, in the school of experience, I can see that serious mistakes would often be made.

"You know that Doctor Miller bought the Bronson farm two years ago. Well, he has been giving some directions himself concerning its management. He has had no experience in farming, and last year, after he had the new barn built, he directed his men to put the sheaf oats in the barn so they would be safe from the weather. He did not understand that oats must stand in the shock for two or three weeks to become thoroughly "cured" before they can safely be even stacked out of doors ; and the result was that his entire oat crop rotted in the barn.

"People who have lived always in the city sometimes express the most amusing opinions of farm conditions so well understood even by a ten-yearold country boy. I recently overheard two traveling men remarking about the differences which they could plainly observe between the corn crops in different fields as they rode past in the train.

" 'Some fields have twice as good corn as other adjoining fields,' one remarked. 'How do you account for the difference,' asked the other. 'Oh, I suppose the one farmer was too stingy of his seed,' was the reply.

LIFE'S CHOICE 27

"I am convinced that there are hundreds or perhaps thousands of valuable facts that have been acquired through experience and observation by the average farm boy of eighteen or twenty years that would be of little or no value to him in most other occupations; and in this respect I should be handicapped if I leave the farm life and begin wholly at the bottom in some other profession. Perhaps agriculture is not a profession, but I think it should be if the highest success is to be attained."

"I surely hope you will be successful, Percy, and your reasoning sounds alright; but other occupations seem to lead to greater wealth than farming."

"I very much doubt," replied Percy, "if there is any other occupation that is so uniformly successful as farming, in the truest sense. It provides constant employment, a good living, and a comfortable home for nearly all who engage in it; and as a rule they have made no such preparation as is required for most other lines of work.

"But there is still another side to the farm life, Mother dear, or to any life for that matter. Your own life has taught me that to work for the love of others is a motive which directs the noblest lives. If agricultural missionaries are needed in India, they are also needed In parts of our own country where farm lands that were once productive are now greatly depleted and in some cases even abandoned for farming; and if the older lands of the corn belt are already showing a decrease in productive power, we need the missionary even here. If I can learn how to make land richer and richer and lead others to follow such a system, I should find such satisfaction In the effort."

CHAPTER V Worn Out Farms

" "W "W" "y ELL, you found some mighty poor

^ j^ / land, I reckon," was the greeting

^/%/ Percy received from Grandma West

Y V as he returned from his walk over

Westover and some neighboring

farms.

"I found some land that produces very poor crops," he replied, ''but I don't know yet whether I should say that the land is poor."

''Well, I know it's about as poor as poor can be; but it was not always poor, I can tell you. When I was a girl, if this farm did not produce five or six thousand bushels of wheat, we thought it a poor crop; but now. If we get five or six hundred bushels, we think we are doing pretty well. My husband's father paid sixty-eight dollars an acre for some of this land, and it was worth more than that a few years later and, mind you, in those days wheat was worth less and niggers a mighty sight more than they are nowadays; but, somehow, the land has just grown poor. We don't know how. We have worked hard, and we have kept as much stock as we could, but we could never produce enough fertilizer on the farm to go very far on a thousand acres.