The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1904-09-09
Most Productive Land Not
Always the Most Valuable

1t sometimes happens that the
value of a piece of land cannot be
told by its productivity. Two farms
may lie side by side and one may be
producing excellent crops from year
to year and the other. of exactly the
same kind of land, may be producing
half as much. The buyer would nat
urally choose the first one rather than
the latter. But in doing this he might
make a mistake. Mr.. w. ]. Thompson
was recently mentioning this matter
to the writer. He had inspected two
such farms in Canada, and said that
IL he were going to buy either farm
he would take the one that had been
producing the smaller crops. The
reason for this was easy to under
stand The soil was the same on both
farms. But the first farm had been
in the hands of a careful and ambi-
tious cultivator and he had drained
his land and placed it in a condition
Where 1t could be used to produce
the maximum crops. And for gen.
Grafton he had been producing these
big crops. This meant that the sup
ply of available plant food in the
soil had been constantly drawn on.
while in the adjacent farm the supply
had been drawn on to only half the
extent it had on the other farm.
There was then in the soil of that
so-called poor farm" very much
larger supply of fertility than there
was in the so-called good farm" 1t
was merely a question of mechanics.
that is. the proper drainage of the soil
and its proper tillage afterward. All
of our readers will see the force Of
this reasoning. 1t is only another IL
lustration of the fact that things are
not what they SEEM"
In riding through a section of H.
linois one farm was passed where
the crops were simply luXuriant. The
wheat stood five feet high and other
crops were in proportion, all Of them
being much better than they were in
the surrounding regions. 1t was evil
dent that the land on that farm was
remarkably rich and that the physi-
cal structure of the soil must be
about perfect A resident of that
locality smiled when the matter was
mentioned to him. He replied that
the crops on that farm were very
good, as the farm was for sale. In
quiry brought out the information that
the agent that had the farm for sale
had proved to be very successful in
the disposing of farms at good prices.
His practice was to buy a farm and
in the spring put on it large quaint
ties of quick-working fertilizers, gen.
orally of the calculated kind or some
heterogeneous manure il nitrogen was
needed. The result was that for one
year the crops would be magnificent,
as the man could afford to put on
more than it would pay to put on
under ordinary farming conditions.
When the crops were at their best
he brought to see the farm the people
that he had in mind as purchasers.
He could say to them that he wanted
them to see the crops actually grow
ing, which would appear a very fair
way of doing. In this way he had sold
numerous farms and made most ex-
cellent profits. OF course the buyers
supposed that the land was bearing
these crops from the fertility natural
ly in it. In year or two after pur-
chase the buyer finds ont that his
land for some reason is losing in it's
ability to produce crops. Again we
bearing heavy crops is not positive
proof that it is the most valuable
land to buy.