toward ultimate land ruin, for the removal of larger crops only
hastens soil depletion.

"To bring about the adoption of systems of farming that will restore
our depleted Eastern and Southern soils, and that will maintain or
increase the productive power of our remaining fertile lands of the
Great Central West, where we are now producing half of the total
corn crop of the entire world, is not only the most important
material problem of the United States; but to bring this about is
worthy of, and will require, the best thought of the most
influential men of America. Without a prosperous agriculture here
there can be no permanent prosperity for our American institutions.
While some small countries can support themselves by conducting
trade, commerce, and manufacture, for other countries, American
agriculture must not only be self-supporting, but, in large degree,
agriculture must support our other great industries.

"Without agriculture, the coal and iron would remain in the earth,
the forest would be left uncut, the railroads would be abandoned,
the cities depopulated, and the wooded lands and water-ways would
again be used only for hunting and fishing. Shall we not remember,
for example, that the coal mine yields a single harvest--one
crop--and is then forever abandoned; while the soil must yield a
hundred--yes, a thousand crops, and even then it must be richer and
more productive than at the beginning, if those who come after us
are to continue to multiply and replenish the earth.

"Even the best possible system of soil improvement, we must admit,
is not the absolute and final solution of this, the most stupendous
problem of the United States. If war gives way to peace and