Checking the Waste: A Study in Conservation. Mary Huston Gregory

fertilized, and a proper rotation of crops established, there are still other lessons to be learned in order to make our country as productive as it might be, as it will need to be to support the population that we shall have by the end of the century.

      As a nation we undertake to farm too much land and do it carelessly. The invention of labor-saving machinery has made it possible to farm hundreds and even thousands of acres together with little physical labor. This has made farmers heedless of small amounts of land wasted.

      A man often only expects to make a comfortable living on one hundred and sixty acres of land, while in Europe he would expect to grow rich on two or three acres. It is often said that a French family would live off of an American farmer's neglected fence-corners. In France, in England, in Holland and Belgium every bit of land is tended and made useful. We have the best natural soil in the world, the most fertile river valleys, watered by abundant rains. The fertility of our lands is the envy of the civilized world, and has drawn thousands to our shores in the hope of finding comfort and plenty, and yet the total value of our farm products was only eleven dollars and thirty-eight cents per cultivated acre according to the last census, while in the little island of Jersey, just off the English coast, the average annual value of products is over two hundred and fifty dollars per acre.

      Germany has been cultivated nearly eighteen hundred years, the soil is not naturally so productive nor the climate so favorable as ours, but the wheat yield there averages more than twice as much as in this country.

      When the most fertile land in the world produces so much less than poorer lands elsewhere it plainly shows that we are robbing the soil in order to get the largest cash returns in the shortest possible time and with the least possible labor.

      The American farmer needs to cultivate a much smaller amount of land thoroughly, to have a soil analysis made of his land in order to know what crops are best suited to it and what elements are lacking to make it produce the best. In Illinois more than half a million acres had become unfit for cultivation. Analysis showed that the soil was too acid. By mixing limestone dust with the soil the trouble was corrected and the land reclaimed.

      Often it is only necessary to find the cause of some deficiency, or lack, in the soil, and the remedy will be found to be simple and cheap, while the result of its use will be to double the crop. Nothing else so quickly and easily responds to proper treatment, no other resource is so easily conserved. All the soil needs is proper treatment.

      Every bit of waste land should be cultivated for either use or beauty, or both. If all the lanes and neglected places could be planted with fruit and nut trees, berry vines, and bushes, herbs or flowers which need little cultivation after they are planted, our food, in variety and quantity, would be greatly increased. "The hedge-rows of Old England" are famous for their beauty and the air of comfort and prosperity they give. They take the place of the weeds that grow by the country roadsides in America and which constitute one of the greatest nuisances of the farmer.

      Another thing that should be considered is the marketing of farm products. Near a city or near a canning factory the soil can be most profitably used for the raising of vegetables, for which the cost of cultivation is great, but which yield far larger profits than farm crops.

      Within the last few years a new system of farming has been developed in the West, which is of great interest to all of us, both because it is opening up for production a large part of our country that has seemed valueless, and because the lessons that have been learned there are of the greatest advantage in every part of the country.

      West of the one-hundredth meridian, which crosses North and South Dakota, the western part of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and including the states west of them, lies a vast region that used to be known as the "great American desert." It comprises almost half of the United States. Here the noble forests of the eastern states and the prairie grasses of the plains were replaced by sage-brush and cactus. The soil was light in color and weight, and the rainfall very scanty.

      It seemed impossible that it could ever be fitted for agriculture. But there were a few great rivers, rich mining districts, and excellent grazing lands. These attracted settlers, and to them some cultivation of the soil became almost a necessity. The waste waters of the rivers were used for irrigation and the land when watered was found to produce remarkably fine fruits and agricultural products. Yet there were hundreds of thousands of acres that could not be irrigated for lack of water, and the problem of finding a use for these barren, semi-arid lands remained unsolved for many years.

      But here and there in different states and under varying conditions, after many experiments and failures, men began without water to grow successful crops on these semi-arid lands, where the rainfall was scarcely more than ten inches per year. Others following this method found success, and it began to seem possible that all this territory might some day become a great farming region.

      By comparing the methods employed in different states, the few general laws have been worked out which must be applied in order to farm successfully in this region, though the details differ with local differences in altitude, climate, soil, and rainfall. Here farming is being reduced to a science. In other parts of the country a man sows his seed and nature cares for it, and gives him his harvest; but here he must wring from nature all that he gets, so it is only the man who farms according to fixed laws who can hope to succeed.

      This system is usually called "dry farming," though "scientific farming" would perhaps be a better name, for the same principles that are absolutely necessary here will greatly increase the yield anywhere. The most important principle is to conserve every particle of moisture in the soil. It is necessary to go deep into the soil to find the underlying moisture. The seed-bed is made very deep. Plowing is from sixteen to nineteen inches deep, while in well-watered regions it is only about six inches. This deep seed-bed is thoroughly cultivated to make the soil porous, the soil being reduced to a fine powder. After sowing the seed, the ground is packed as solidly as possible. This is done by especially designed machines. The surface of the soil is kept broken all the time to prevent the escape of the moisture. This rule applies equally to all soils in dry weather, and will often save a crop of corn in any part of the country during a drought.

      These are simple rules, but the practice of them is opening up the great semi-arid regions, not of the United States only, but of the whole earth. Western Canada, a large part of Australia, the Kalahari Desert of Africa, and many parts of Asia, which are all semi-arid, will in time become productive instead of barren.

      It must be remarked that the grains of the East could not withstand the severe winters in a large part of the Northwest, so the Department of Agriculture sent men all over the world to find drought-and-cold-resisting grains. They found a hard winter wheat, the most nutritious in existence, which is now growing all the way from the Dakotas to the Pacific Ocean, producing crops far above the yield of the eastern states. 50,000,000 bushels of this wheat was raised in 1907.

      The soil is the natural disintegrated rock, rich in the mineral elements, but lacking in decayed vegetable matter. The crops soon exhaust the nitrogen, and as clover and the common alfalfas can not grow there, the problem of finding legumes has been the most serious one facing this new region; but in Siberia the Agricultural Department has recently found a new clover and three varieties of alfalfa that will stand the cold, and Secretary Wilson believes that these will solve the problem.

      Every acre brought under cultivation adds to the world's food supply. Can we even dream of what it will mean when 200,000,000 acres are added to the farm lands of this continent? It means prosperity for the farmers themselves, homes for those who are now crowded in cities, work for the idle, and food for the hungry. It means wealth and happiness for thousands now living and millions yet to come.

REFERENCES

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      Lands. Report National Conservation Commission.

      Soil Wastage. Chamberlain. Report White House Conference of Governors.

      Conservation of Soils. Van Hise. (Same.)