the crop and pay the rent for the land or interest and taxes on the
investment. With land worth $150 an acre, it will require $8 to pay
the interest and taxes. Another $8 will be required to raise the
crop and harvest and market it, even with very inadequate provision
made for maintaining the productive power of the soil, such as a
catch crop of clover, or a very light dressing of farm fertilizer. A
forty-bushel crop of corn at forty cents a bushel, which is about
the ten year average price for Illinois, would bring only $16 an
acre, and this would leave no profit whatever.

"A crop of fifty bushels would leave only ten bushels as profit;
but, if we could double the yield and thus produce a hundred bushels
per acre, the profit would not be doubled only, but it would be six
times as great as from the fifty bushel crop. In other words, 100
bushels of corn from one acre would yield practically the same
profit as fifty bushels per acre from six acres, simply because it
requires the first forty bushels from each acre to pay for the fixed
charges or regular expense.

"It is not the amount of crop the farmer handles, but the amount of
actual profit that determines his prosperity. It requires profit to
build the new home or repair the old one, to provide the home with
the comforts and conveniences that are now to be had in the country
as well as in the city; to send the boys and girls to college; to
provide for the expense of travel and the luxuries of the home."

Percy stopped himself with an apology.

"I hope you will pardon me, Miss West. I forget that this subject
may be of no interest to you, and I have completely monopolized the