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The Story of the Soil

C >> Cyril G. Hopkins >> The Story of the Soil




We sold our main lot of hogs for $654, and have another lot to go
later. We are getting so many horses and cattle on the place, that
we are going out of the hog business.

Percy says that hogs belong more properly in the corn belt, than in
the wheat and fruit belt. You know the year I came the corn crop was
on No. I, which had never grown anything but corn, oats, and wheat,
so far as we can learn; and the corn was so poor the hogs ate most
of it in two months' time. During the same two months the price of
hogs dropped from 7 to 4-1/2 cents, so that the hogs were worth no
more after eating the corn crop than they were before.

Next year we are to have corn on No. 4, and Percy says it will be
the first time that corn has had a "ghost of a show to make a decent
crop" since he bought the place. The spring before we were married
he reseeded that forty, sowing mixed alsike and timothy. The clover
came on finely, evidently because the scanty growth of clover the
year before had at least allowed the field to become thoroughly
infected with the clover bacteria. There was no clover on the
unlimed strip. So we say that limestone and bacteria brought clover.
The hay and other feed has made manure enough so that No. 4 has been
completely covered with six tons per acre, and the phosphate has
also been applied; so with manure and phosphate on clover ground we
hope to grow corn next year, if we have good weather.

The phosphate has also been put on some of the other forties. I
convinced him that the money will pay a higher rate of interest in
phosphate than it would in the savings bank, even if he put it on
before manure and clover could be plowed under. The experiments of
several states show this very conclusively.

The corn is on No. 3 this year and it is the best crop in the six
years. Percy says the "Terry Act" (which means lots of work in
preparing the land) is some help, but he thinks the phosphate shows
against the check strips. The young wheat on No. 2 is looking fine,
and with both limestone and phosphate on that field and the extra
work on the seed bed, we hope for a better crop than we have ever
grown on a full forty; even though we must depend solely upon our
reserve stock of nitrogen for the crop. We are all about as jealous
of that reserve stock of organic matter and nitrogen as we are of
the Winterbine bank account.

I cannot forget how Percy tried to persuade me to postpone our
wedding for a year because, as he said, the hogs had taken his corn
crop and given nothing in return for it; and above all how he
objected to my reimbursing the Winterbine reserve from my teacher's
wages to the extent of $250, which he had drawn in part to tide over
the hard times, and in part to come to see me that Easter. But I am
glad to have him still insist upon it that that uncertain venture
proved his best investment, even if he does tease by adding that it
paid one hundred and fifty per cent. net profit at Winterbine.

We are selling some cows this fall,--trying to weed out our herd by
the Babcock test which shows that "some cows don't pay their board
and keep," to quote Governor Hoard's lecture on "Cows versus Cows,"
which Percy heard at Olney the winter Professor Barstow was married.
The "versus cows" are worth only $45.

I cannot tell you how I have enjoyed the summer. Sir Charles Henry
is the dearest child, and his grandmother insists upon it that it is
better for me to help Percy in the field with such light work as I
can do, and I am out for a few hours every day when the weather is
good. Percy's mother is such a dear. I am sure she could be no more
sweet and loving to an own daughter. She had Percy all to herself
for so long that I was really afraid she might not like to share him
with me, but Percy says that it was his mother who persuaded him to
make us that Easter visit. We tell her that she hasn't much use for
either of us now, and that we are likely to get jealous because
Charles Henry gets so much of her affection.

I forgot to tell you of Percy's four-acre patch of wheat. He said it
is so long to wait till 1912 for his first wheat crop on land that
had grown clover at least once during historic times that he thought
he would fix up a little patch to grow a crop of wheat, just to see
how real wheat would look; or, as he sometimes says, to see how
wheat grows in "Egypt" when it has a ghost of a chance.

He treated a four-acre patch down by the wood's pasture with
limestone, phosphorus, and farm manure, did the "Terry Act" in
preparing the seed bed, and drilled in a good variety of wheat, on
October 17,--a little later than he likes to finish sowing wheat. It
came up with a good stand but did not make very much fall growth,
partly owing to the dry weather. In the spring the man came across
the patch and reported to Percy that the wheat was mighty small and
he guessed it was "gone up," although it seemed to be all alive.
Percy said that he would not worry about it if it were alive because
the wheat would find something to please it when it really woke up
in the spring. I reckon it did, for a neighbor passed on his way to
town in early May and called over the fence to Percy that his patch
of rye down by the woods was looking fine. Well the four acres
yielded 129-1/2 bushels, or a little more than thirty-two bushels
per acre. Percy said if he could have eighty acres of it and sell it
for $1.18 a bushel, the same as he got for the last he sold, it
would amount to twice the original cost of the land--and then some.

Mr. Barton asked him if he could not raise "just as good crops with
good old farm manure," and if he could not build up his whole farm
with farm manure. Percy said yes, but he would need three thousand
tons for the first application. Mr. Barton then suggested that that
was more than the whole township produced.

No. 5 has been in pasture for three years, clover and grass having
been seeded in 1906, even though the wet weather had prevented the
seeding of wheat the fall before, and the ground was left too rough
for the mower. Percy hopes to have that forty completely covered
with manure by the time he will be ready to apply the phosphate and
plow it under for the 19 I I corn crop.

Now your "Egyptian" son has just read over this long, long letter,
and he says that if I were a real wise old farmer I would not begin
to talk about results before a single forty acres of grain had had a
ghost of a chance to make a crop. He says that every bushel of corn,
oats, and wheat that this old farm has produced during the last six
years has been wholly at the expense of the meager stock of reserve
nitrogen still left in the soil after seventy-five years of almost
continuous effort to "work the land for all that's in it" He says
that we have no right to expect really good crops until after the
second rotation is completed, because the clover grown during the
first rotation does not have a fair show, the limestone not yet
being well mixed with the soil, the phosphorus supply being
inadequate, the inoculation or infection being imperfect, and no
provision whatever having been made to supply decaying organic
matter in advance of the first clover crop. I think he is right as
usual and I promise to give no more advance information hereafter
except upon inquiry, at least not until 1918, when the first wheat
crop will be grown on land which has been twice in clover. We are
mighty sorry not to be able to be with you for Thanksgiving or
Christmas, but really we cannot go to the expense; our house is so
small (we just must build a larger barn) and our home equipment is
so meager that, in the words which you will remember Percy told us
his mother credited to Mrs. Barton, I feel that as yet I must say,

"Do come over when you can."

Your happy, loving daughter,

ADELAIDE.

P.S.--Three big oil wells, belonging to the class called "gushers,"
have been struck about seven or eight miles from Poorland Farm. We
are all getting interested except Percy. He says he does not want
any oil wells on his six rotation forties or in the wood's pasture,
but he might let them bore in the twelve-acre orchard, which has
never produced but one crop that paid for itself, and the profit
from that is about all gone for the later years of spraying.

The first oil boom in Illinois was at Casey where they struck oil
six or eight years ago, but they say the wells there are dry already
and they have to go back to farming again to get a living. Of course
if we could get a hundred-barrel well on every ten acres and get a
royalty of $400 a day for a few years, it would help out nicely, but
the oil business is uncertain and short-lived, whereas, to quote
Percy "the soil is the breast of Mother Earth, from which her
children must always draw their nourishment."

Some have spoken to Percy about the coal right, but he says if there
are ten thousand tons of coal per acre under Poorland Farm, he will
save it for Charles Henry before he will allow anyone else to take
it out for less than ten cents a ton. He says that just because the
United States Government was generous enough to give the settler
three hundred and twenty acres of land, and foolish enough to throw
in with it three million tons of coal if it happened to lie beneath,
is no reason why he should sell it to any coal company or coal trust
at the rate of ten tons for one cent, which is the same as ten
dollars per acre for the coal right. He says if Uncle Sam ever wants
to assume his rightful ownership of all coal, phosphate deposits, or
other minerals whose conservation and proper use is essential to the
continued prosperity of all the people, then our coal shall be his;
but, if he does not want it then he will consider nothing less than
leasing on the basis of a royalty of ten cents a ton to be paid to
him, his heirs, and assigns, etc.; but even then he wants enough
coal left to hold up the earth, so that there will be no
interference with the tile drains which he expects sometime to put
down at an expense exceeding the original cost of the land. With
much love,

ADELAIDE.

P.S.--Percy sends his love to grandma and a photograph for Papa,
from which you will see that on such land as ours no limestone or
phosphate means no clover.--A. W. J.

The author takes this occasion to say to the kind reader who has had
the patience and the necessary interest in the stupendous problem
now confronting the American people, of devising and adopting into
general practice independence systems of farming that will restore,
increase, and permanently maintain the productive power of American
farm lands,--to those who have read thus far the _Story of the Soil
_and who may have some desire for more specific and more complete or
comprehensive information upon the subject,--to all such he takes
this occasion to say that this volume is based scientifically upon
"Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture."

This little book is intended as an introduction to the subject; the
other may be classed as technical, but nevertheless can be
understood by any one who gives it serious thought. This book tells
the true story of the soil, for which the other gives a thousand
proofs.

Grateful acknowledgment is here expressed that even the measure of
success thus far attained on Poorland Farm has been possible largely
through the co-operation of a beloved brother, Carl Edwin, the man
who does a world of work, ably assisted by "Adelaide."

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