The record-union., 1899-05-21
FARMING AS A SCIENCE.
THE OLD-TASHIONED FARMER
Is DOOMED.
He Must Give Way to the Wisdom
of Science Here
after.

Like the Indian, the old-fashioned
farmer is doomed. Hon. James VIII
son. Secretary of Agriculture, says his
methods are worn out. They must give
way to the wisdom of science. Inc
farmer youth of to-day is the scientific
agr1culturist of tomorrow. People, ne
SAID, might call these new tangled
ideas if they wanted to, but they were
Sustained by facts. The farmer must
learn how to make his ground yield the
most This knowledge he would never
gain unless he familiarized himself with
the science of the soil.
In the plant propagating house on the
department grounds is the scene OF one
OF the most deeply scientific and pro-
gressive of the many Investigations now
being conducted by the institution under
Secretary Wilson The investigation
is important experiments to show the
comparative productive values of soils.
or earth, gathered from all over the
United States The great practical
utility derived is in the farmer being
able to discover, even in a small meas
ure, the preference of any particular
vegetation for any one soil or class Of
soils.
In 173 pots are samples of earth from
fifteen States and thu t.strict of Co.
lumbia These are California. Florida,
Illinois. Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mary
land, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New
York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Da-
kota and Wisconsin. The other States
will be investigated in turn later al
though the present collection includes
= about every type now cultivated in the
UNITED States and represents a wide
= Variation .aG RI mo, md
The experiment was begun five years
ago and will be completed some time
next year. Therefore, it is not pos
sible now to present the final conclu-
sicns derived from the carefully OBJ
served and recorded phenomena.
The experiment is the first effort to
reach definite results with particular
soils and the method used is based upon
comparing many growths of the same
crops upon soils of great variety of
character and composition. The crop
and the manner of it's cultivation re-
mains always the same, the soils only
differing. The results, therefore are
expected to show the difference in vege-
tation, due to the difference in soils.
From each State named, with great
care was collected sample of each of
four of its soils; the virgin surface
earth, found in sections never cultivat-
ed. such as the prairie lands of the
West; the virgin subsoil, taken from
the same parts but dug from below a
foot in distance from the surface: Gull
tiFated surface soil and cultivated SUD-
SOIL These were air dried sacked
labeled and forwarded from the agri-
cultural stations in the States, and az =
irving here were quickly air dried again
and small samples of each were taken
for chemical and physical examination
The remaining soil was placed in til
pots. which are so constructed that the
water supply is carried upward throug-
the earth from a reservoir surrounding
the pot, as usual with flower pots III
this manner the top of the soil is kept
lose and open, not hard and baked
as happens with flower pots from the
surface
The chemical analysis of the samples
( was for the purpose of showing the con-
st.tuents of each soil in the way o.
potash, phosphoric acid and nitrogen
the principal elements that sustain
plant life; although sand, lime. magne-
sia and dozen others are to be found
The physical analysis was for the pur-
rose of separating the soil of a sample
into standard sizes, and also to ascer-
tain the capacity of each kind of abb
snbing and holding moisture. A rec
ord of each result is carefully made and
preserved in order to compare it Will
the analysis of the soil at the end of the
slX-year arbitrary period next year.
The plants selected for the experiment
We're oats. beans and buckwheat. These