The Story of the Soil Part 32

In addition to this benefit, the kainit will furnish some readily available pota.s.sium, magnesium, and sulfur; and, by purchasing kainit in carload lots, the pota.s.sium will cost us less than it would in the form of the more expensive pota.s.sium chlorid or pota.s.sium sulfate purchased in ton lots. Of course we do not need this in order to add to our total stock of pota.s.sium, but more especially I think to a.s.sist 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 pota.s.sium 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 pa.s.sed 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 x.x.xV

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 friends.h.i.+p or grat.i.tude 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 ent.i.tle 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 att.i.tude as the months pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sume 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 cla.s.s, 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?

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

HARD TIMES

WHEN Percy and his mother reached Poorland Farm in March they found a small frame house needing only s.h.i.+ngles, paint, and paper to make it a fairly comfortable home, until they should be able to add such conveniences as Percy knew could be installed in the country as well as in the city. From the sale of corn and some other produce they were able to add to the residue of $1,840, which represented the difference between the cost of three hundred and twenty acres in Egypt and the selling price of forty acres in the corn belt. An even $3,000 was left in the savings bank at Winterbine.

"If we can live," said Percy, "just as the other 'Egyptians' must live, and save our $3,000 for limestone and phosphate, I believe we shall win out. Through the efforts of the Agricultural College and the Governor of the State the convicts in the Southern Illinois Penitentiary have been put to quarrying stone, and large crushers and grinders have been installed, and the State Board of Prison Industries is already beginning to s.h.i.+p ground limestone direct to farmers at sixty cents a ton in bulk in box cars. The entire Illinois Freight a.s.sociation gave an audience to the Warden of the Penitentiary and representatives from the Agricultural College and a uniform freight rate has been granted of one-half cent per ton per mile. This will enable us to secure ground limestone delivered at Heart-of-Egypt for $1.22-1/2 per ton.

"Now, to apply five tons per acre on two hundred and forty acres will require one thousand two hundred tons and that will cost us $1,570 in cash, less perhaps the $70, which we save on roads and the untreated check strips which I want to leave. To apply one ton of phosphate per acre to the same six fields will cost about $1,600. Of course, I shall not begin to apply phosphate until after I have applied the limestone and get some clover or manure to mix with the phosphate when I plow it under; and I hope with the help of the limestone we shall get some clover and some increase in the other crops. In any case the $3,000 and interest we will get for what we can leave in the bank during the six or eight years it will take to get the rotation and treatment under way will pay for the initial cost of the first applications of both limestone and phosphate; and we shall hope that by that time the farm will bring us something more than a living."

The carload of effects s.h.i.+pped from Winterbine to Heart-of-Egypt included two horses, a cow, a few breeding hogs, and some chickens; also a supply of corn and oats sufficient for the summer's feed grain.

After the expenses of s.h.i.+pping were paid, less than $350 were deposited in the bank at the County Seat. Of this $250 were used for the purchase of another team. Hay was bought from a neighbor and some old hay that had been discarded by the balers, who had purchased, baled, and sold the previous hay crop from Poorland Farm, Percy gathered up and saved for bedding.

He plowed forty acres of the land that had not been cropped for five years, and, after some serious delays on account of wet weather, planted the field in corn, using the Champion White Pearl variety, be cause the Experiment Station had found it to be one of the best varieties for poor land.

"I wouldn't plant that corn if you would give me the seed," a neighbor had said to him. "See how big the cob is; and the tip is not well filled out, and there is too much s.p.a.ce between the rows. I tell you there's too much cob in it for me. I want to raise corn and not corn cob."

"It certainly is not a good show ear," said Percy, "but what I want most is bushels of sh.e.l.led corn per acre. Perhaps these big kernels will help to give the young plant a good start, and perhaps the piece of cob extending from the tip will make room for more kernels if the soil can be built up so as to furnish the plant food to make them. The cob is large but it is covered with grains all the way around; and, if those kernels of corn were putty, we could mash them down a little and have less s.p.a.ce between the rows, but it would make no more corn on the ear. However, my chief reason for planting the Champion White Pearl is that this variety has produced more sh.e.l.led corn per acre than any other in the University experiments on the gray prairie soil of 'Egypt.'"

There were only sixteen acres of corn grown on the entire farm in 1903 and this yielded thirteen bushels per acre, as Percy learned from the share of the crop received by the previous landowner.

In 1904 the Champion White Pearl yielded twenty bushels per acre, as nearly as could be determined by weighing the corn from a few shocks on a small truck scale Percy had brought from the north. He numbered his six forty-acre fields from one to six. Forty No. 7 was occupied by twelve acres of apple orchard, eight acres of pasture, and twenty acres of old meadow. By getting eighty rods of fencing it was possible to include twenty-eight acres in the pasture, although one hundred and ninety-two rods of fencing had been required to surround the eight-acre pasture. The remainder of the farm was in patches, including about fifteen acres on one corner crossed by a little valley and covered with trees, a tract which Percy and his mother treasured above any of the forty-acre fields. While the week was always filled with work, there were many hours of real pleasure found in the wood's pasture on the Sunday afternoons.

Forty No. I was left to "lie out," and No. 2 raised only twelve acres of cowpeas. No. 3 was plowed during the summer and seeded to timothy in the early fall. No. 4 was in corn and Nos. 5 and 6 were left in meadow, two patches of nine and sixteen acres previously in cowpeas and corn having been seeded to timothy in order, as Percy said, to "square out" the forty-acre fields. About fifty acres of land were cut over for about sixteen tons of hay. The corn was all put in shock, and the fodder as well as the grain used for feed, the refuse from the fodder and poor hay serving as bedding. About three tons of cowpea hay of excellent quality were secured from the twelve acres, and fifty barrels of apples were put in storage.

Another cow and eight calves were bought, and during the winter, some b.u.t.ter, two small bunches of the last spring's pigs, and the apple crop were sold. A few eggs had been sold almost every week since the previous March.

In 1905 No. 1 was rented for corn on shares and produced about six hundred bushels of which Percy received one-third. No. 2 yielded four hundred and eighty-four bushels of oats. No. 3 produced fourteen tons of poor hay. No. 4 was "rested" and prepared for wheat, ground limestone having been applied. No. 5 was fall-plowed from old meadow and well prepared and planted to corn in good time; but, after the second cultivation, heavy rains set in and continued until the corn was seriously damaged on the flat areas of the field, the more so as he had not fully understood the importance of keeping furrows open with outlets at the head-lands through which the excess surface water could pa.s.s off quickly under such weather conditions.

Patches of the field aggregating at least five acres were so poorly surface drained that the corn was "drowned out," and fifteen acres more were so wet as to greatly injure the crop. However, on the better drained parts of the field where the corn was given further cultivation the yield was good and about 1,000 bushels of sound corn were gathered from the forty acres.

A mixture of timothy, redtop and weeds was cut for hay on No. 6, the yield being better than half a ton per acre.

The apples were a fair crop, and the total sales from that crop amounted to $750, but about half of this had been expended for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and spraying the trees, a spraying outfit, barrels, picking, packing, freight and cold storage. A good bunch of hogs were sold.

Another year pa.s.sed. Oats were grown on No. 1 and on part of No. 2, yielding eleven bushels per acre.

No. 3 yielded one-third of a ton of hay per acre.

Wheat was grown on No. 4, and clover, the first the land had known in many years, if ever, was seeded in the spring,--twenty acres of red clover and twenty of alsike.

The fifty-four acres of wheat, including fourteen acres on No. 2, yielded seven and one-half bushels per acre. Soy beans were planted on No. 5, but wet weather seriously interferred and only part of the field was cut for hay. Limestone was applied, but heavy continued rains prevented the seeding of wheat.

No. 6 produced about twenty-seven bushels per acre of corn.

Two lots of hogs were sold for about $800, and some young steers increased the receipts by nearly $100.

Mrs. Johnston continued to buy the groceries with eggs and b.u.t.ter; but it was necessary to buy some hay, and the labor bill was heavy.

No. 5 joined the twenty-eight acre pasture and on two other sides it joined neighbors' farms where line fences were up, and on the other side lay No. 4.

Percy was trying to get ready to pasture the clover on No. 4, and a mile of new fencing was required. The materials were bought and the fence built, and when finished it also completed the fencing required to enclose No. 5. The twenty-eight acre pasture was inadequate for sixteen head of cattle and the young stock was kept in a hired pasture. Unless he could produce more feed, Percy saw that the farm would soon be overstocked, for some colts were growing and eight cows were now giving milk.