The Story of the Soil Part 23

"Then you apply about twenty tons of seaweed to the acre for corn?"

"Yes, but some use less and some more; probably that's about an average. Hauling seaweed's a big job and a bad job. We have to start from home long before daylight so as to get there and get the weed while the tide is out, and then we get back with our load about two o'clock in the afternoon; and, by the time we eat and feed the team, and get the load to the field and spread, there isn't much time left that day, especially when you've got to pile out of bed about two o'clock the next morning and hike off for another load."

"Then you use some fertilizer in addition to the seaweed? May I ask how much fertilizer you apply to the acre and about how much it costs per ton?"

"Where we spread seaweed for corn, we add about four hundred and fifty pounds per acre of fertilizer that costs me $26 a ton, but I have the agency and get it some cheaper than most have to pay. Then for potatoes we apply about 1500 pounds of a special potato fertilizer that costs me $34 a ton."

"The fertilizer costs you about $6 an acre for the corn crop and $25 for potatoes," said Percy; "and then you have the cost of the seaweed. I should think you would need to count about $25 or $30 an acre for the expense of hauling seaweed."

"Yes, all of that if we had to pay for the work, but of course we can haul seaweed more or less when the farm work isn't crowding, and we don't count so much on the expense. It doesn't take the cash, except may be a little for a boy to drive one team when we haul two loads at a time; and we don't use seaweed for potatoes. The corn crop will generally more'n pay for it and the fertilizer too; and the seaweed helps for three or four years, especially for gra.s.s.

There's good profit in potatoes, too, when we get a crop, but they're risky, considering the money we have to pay for fertilizer."

CHAPTER XXVIII

FARMER OR PROFESSOR

AFTER leaving Rhode Island, Percy spent two days in and about Boston, and then returned to Connecticut for a day. The weather had turned cold; the ground had frozen and the falling snow reminded him that it was the day before Thanksgiving.

From New London he took a night boat to New York, and then took pa.s.sage on a Coast Line vessel from New York to Norfolk.

The weather had cleared and the wind decreased until it was scarcely greater than the speed of the s.h.i.+p.

Whether or not the dining room service was extraordinary because of the day, Percy was soon convinced that the only way to travel was by boat. He regretted only that his mother was not with him to enjoy that day. For hours they coasted southward within easy view of the New Jersey sh.o.r.e, dotted here and there with cities, towns, and villages. Light houses marked the rocky points where danger once lurked for the men of the sea.

The sea itself was of constant interest; and hundreds of craft were pa.s.sed or met. Here a full-rigged sailing vessel lazily drifting with the wind; there a giant little tug puffing in the opposite direction with a string of barges in tow loaded almost to the water's edge.

Norfolk was reached early the next morning, and before noon Percy pa.s.sed through Petersburg on his way to Montplain. He changed cars at Lynchburg and arrived at Montplain before dark. In accordance with a promise to Mr. West he had notified him of his plans.

Would Adelaide met him, and if so would she have the family carriage and again insist upon his riding in the rear seat? He had found these questions in his mind repeatedly since he left New London, with no very definite purpose before him except to arrive at Montplain at the appointed time.

Yes, it was the family carriage. He saw the farm team tied across the street from the depot. As he left the train he caught a glimpse of Adelaide standing with the group of people who were waiting to board the train. She extended her hand as he reached her side.

"Mr. Johnston, meet my cousin, Professor Barstow."

"I am glad to meet you, Professor," said Percy, as he shook hands with a tall young man about his own age. Percy noted his handsome face and gentlemanly bearing.

"Miss Adelaide calls me cousin," said Barstow, "because my aunt married her uncle."

"Well, Sir, if we're not cousins, then I'm Miss West and not Miss Adelaide. Is that too much for an absent-minded professor to remember?"

"I am afraid it is," said Barstow, "and I am sure I would rather be cousins."

"Professor Barstow leaves on this train," Adelaide explained to Percy; "excuse me, please."

Percy raised his hat as he stepped back from the crowd and waited for the parting of the two. He was sure that Barstow held her hand longer than was necessary, and he also noticed that her face flushed as she rejoined him after the train started.

"Will you take the rear seat?" she asked. as they reached the carriage.

"If you so prefer."

"That seat is for our guests, so I don't prefer," came her reply, which left Percy wholly in the dark as to her wishes.

"Then let me be your coachman rather than your guest."

"If you so prefer," she repeated, and without waiting for a.s.sistance quickly mounted to the front seat, leaving him to occupy the driver's seat beside her.

"Captain and Mrs. Stone of Montplain were with us for Thanksgiving and I came with the carriage to take them home. Professor Barstow has also been spending his Thanksgiving vacation visiting with papa."

"Thank you," said Percy, as he took the lines and turned the horses toward Westover.

"You are certainly welcome to drive this team if you enjoy it."

"I thank you for that also," said Percy. Adelaide noted the word _also, _but she only remarked that she hoped he had enjoyed his travels, though she could not understand what pleasure he could find in visiting old worn-out farms.

"Of all things," she continued, "it seems to me that farming is the last that anyone would want to undertake."

"It is both the first and the last," said Percy. "As you know, when our ancestors came to America, agriculture was the first great industry they were able to develop. Other industries and professions follow agriculture and must be supported in large measure by the agricultural industry. Merchants, lawyers, doctors and teachers are in a sense agricultural parasites."

An hour before he would not have included teachers in this cla.s.s; for, next to the mother in the home, he felt that the teacher in the school is the greatest necessity for the highest development of the agricultural cla.s.ses.

"Without agriculture," he continued, "America could never have been developed, and, unless the prosperity of American agriculture can be maintained, poverty is the only future for this great nation. The soil is the greatest source of wealth, and it is the most permanent form of wealth. The Secretary of Agriculture at Was.h.i.+ngton told me a few days ago that eighty-six per cent. of the raw materials used in all our manufacturing industry are produced from the soil.

"Yes, agriculture is certainly the first industry in this country; and I am fully convinced that to restore the fertility of the depleted soils of the East and South, and even to maintain the productive power of the great agricultural regions of the West, deserves and will require the best thought of the most influential people of America.

"Throughout the length and breadth of this land, the almost universal purpose of the farmers is to work the land for all they can get with practically no thought of permanency. The most common remark of the corn belt farmer is that his land doesn't show much wear yet; and it is holding up pretty well, or as well as could be expected; or that he thinks it will last as long as he does. All recognize that the land cannot hold up under the systems of farming that are being practiced, and these systems are essentially the same as have been followed in America since 1607. What the Southern farmer did with slave labor, the Western farmer is now doing with the gang plow, the two-row cultivator, and the four-horse disks and harrows. In addition he tile-drains his land which helps to insure larger crops and more rapid soil depletion. He even uses clover as a soil stimulant, and spreads the farm fertilizer as thinly as possible with a machine made for the purpose in order to secure both its plant food value and its stimulating effect. Positive soil enrichment is practically unknown in the great corn belt.

"Robbery is a harsh word; and yet the farmers and landowners of America are and always have been soil robbers; and they not only rob the nation of the possibility of permanent prosperity, but they even rob themselves of the very comforts of life in their old age and their children and grandchildren of a rightful inheritance.

"Worse than all this, or at least more lamentable, is the fact that it need not be. The soils of Virginia need not have become worn out and abandoned; because the earth and the air are filled with the elements of plant food that are essential to the restoration and permanent maintenance of the high productive capacity of these soils. Moreover there is more profit and greater prosperity for the present landowner in a possible practicable system of positive soil improvement than under any system which leads to ultimate depletion and abandonment of the land.

"The profit in farming lies first of all in securing large crop yields. It costs forty bushels of corn per acre in Illinois to raise 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 conversation."