every land-grant college and agricultural experiment station that
has been heard from, including those in forty-seven states; and yet
this doctrine, emanating from what should be the position of highest
authority, is the most potent of all existing influences to prevent
the proper care of our soils.

The Values in Land

It was Baron von Liebig who taught, both in Germany and in England,
that-"it is not the land itself that constitutes the farmer's
wealth, but it is in the constituents of the soil, which serve for
the nutrition of plants, that this wealth truly consists." And it is
in the application of this teaching, completely verified by sixty
years of investigation and demonstration by Lawes and Gilbert at
Rothamsted, that England has been able to raise her 10-year average
yield of wheat to 37-1/2 bushels an acre, while the average for the
United States stands at 14 bushels.

In Illinois, where the agricultural college and experiment station,
the state farmers' institute and the agricultural press have been
working in perfect co-operation in teaching and demonstrating the
need and value of soil enrichment as well as of seed selection and
proper tillage, the 10-year average yield of wheat is already 3
bushels higher and the 10-year average yield of corn is 7-1/2
bushels higher than the averages for the 25-year period ending with
1890, before the definite information from Illinois investigations
began to be widely disseminated; and yet it must be confessed that
on the average Illinois is producing only 16 bushels of wheat and 36
bushels of corn to the acre, which is less than half a crop,
measured by the possibilities of our soil and climate.