Address, “The Story of the Soil”
Mr. Gross—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am here representing what we think is one of the most distinguished organizations of this country—one devoted to a specific and definite purpose, and that is to secure the application upon our farms of the best methods of farm practices.
In our self-sufficiency we are sometimes disposed to pooh-pooh science. I have heard farmers say, “What do I care about science? I know how to farm. I am a practical farmer.” When I hear a man talk about being a practical farmer, or a practical shoemaker or anything else, I begin to question his knowledge of the art. Reduced to its last analysis, science is simply applied common sense. In other words, to find out the best way of doing anything and then doing it that way.
Scientific farming will increase the output per man, per plow, per mule, per acre, and at the same time it will build up the fertility of the soil. Unscientific methods will wear it out. Millions upon millions of acres of land have been wasted by practical farmers in unscientific farming, by abuse and misuse until the land fails to yield enough to pay the labor of cultivating them. There are millions of acres east of Albany that are not worth today one-fourth as much as they were one hundred years ago.
The soil is our greatest natural asset. It is God’s best gift to man outside of Him who came to save us. It is our duty to conserve this gift as a priceless heritage. In a higher sense the man in whose name the title stands is not the real owner of the land; it is his to use during his lifetime and to pass it on to his successor. It is his paramount duty to turn it over to those that follow him as useful as when he received it. The land is not his except to use, it is not his to abuse. The fertile fields were placed here by God Almighty for the use of humanity for all time and no one has the right to rob the soil of its power to produce and thereby imperil or destroy the birthright of succeeding generations.
Let us look at Europe. They produce two or three times as much as we do upon the same area, notwithstanding their lands have been a thousand years longer under the plow than our own. There must be a reason, and it is that Europe, because of its large population, has been compelled to adopt intensive farming or go hungry. With us it has been different up to the present time. A few years ago, some of we older men can remember the time, when the United States invited everybody to come in and possess the land. An old song says, “Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm.” Since then our population has increased faster than the farming industry. We are now consuming ninety per cent. of our wheat and ninety-eight per cent. of our corn. The population is rapidly overtaking production. In fifty years our population will be doubled. What shall we do about it? I say to you this, we must do better farming or the people will go hungry. A thousand years or so ago Japan and India were at the parting of the ways—about where we stand today. Japan chose the better part and conserved the fertility of her soil and by intensive scientific culture she has fed her people and has demonstrated that a very small patch of ground indeed is sufficient to support an individual. This has been shown in this country—that one or two acres, properly handled, will take care of a small family. Japan acted wisely and is rich and prosperous today. India neglected her duties and her opportunity and today there are millions starving there on account of the lack of foresight of those people who lived thousands of years ago. Shall we follow Japan or India? There can be but one answer. The intelligence of the American people, the spirit of the age demands that we go forward to attain the highest and best and it is our duty to help to this end.
Denmark, a generation or two ago, was in poverty and distress, its people were crowding into the cities. The government saw something must be done to improve conditions. It wisely decided that agriculture must be encouraged, so it commenced to teach agriculture in the schools. It had its agricultural colleges strengthened, it sent men out among the people as traveling schoolmasters, visiting one community after another. Agriculture was taught in the schools. This helped some, but did not solve the problem. Finally they adopted the plan which we propose to follow, of sending a trained farm demonstrator into every community and stay there, study local conditions, meet the farmers right on the soil, and help them to understand and apply the best methods and get the best results for the time and effort expended. In two generations it brought Denmark from poverty to thrift, and today it is the finest agricultural country in the world. This comes about from carrying the knowledge to the farm home in the personality of the farm demonstrator who helps the farmer apply the best methods in practice.
Wherever the plan has been tried it has succeeded. It is the one plan that has made good, and in my judgment it is the only one that ever will. Now, then, what are we going to do about it? The most important question that has been discussed on this platform during this Congress is the one under discussion now. It is vital, it touches every human interest. The question is, shall we build up our soil and insure the food supply for coming generations, or shall we not? It is a tremendously important question and one pressing for answer.
I am glad to say this to you, that the National Soil Fertility League determined upon a plan, and so far we have had greater success in carrying it forward than we had any reason to expect. Its plan has the approval of nearly every agricultural authority in the land. It awakened a tremendous amount of interest. It shows many people were thinking in a general way that something ought to be done and were ready to rally to the support of any definite proposition that commended itself to their judgment. The National Soil Fertility League, together with the agricultural college men, drafted what is known as the Lever bill, the object of which is to provide for the co-operation of the Federal Government and the several States in carrying forward this farm demonstration plan. Under this bill the Federal Government makes an annual appropriation to every State of $10,000 a year, irrespective of condition; then it makes further appropriations conditioned upon the States furnishing an equal sum beginning with $300,000 and increasing to $3,000,000 in ten years. Except for the $10,000 all the appropriations are prorated among the States on the basis of rural population. Indiana under this plan would get $10,000 right off the reel from the fixed appropriation; it would get $9,400 from the conditional appropriation provided Indiana should furnish an equal sum. So Indiana would get from the Federal Government the first year a total of $19,400. This would go to Purdue University. Next year it would be increased to $28,800 and would go on up to $104,000 from the general government to the State College of Agriculture. In order to get this money Indiana would have to raise $94,000, so that the State would have when the maximum was reached approximately $200,000 to expend for carrying to the farmers of Indiana the existing methods of agriculture and carrying to the farmer’s wife the best they can give her. What a wonderful help this would be.
There are three great needs in the open country. One is better schools. The country schools of today are not worthy of their name. They fail to meet the requirements of the day and generation. The next important need is good roads, and the third is scientific agriculture. Bringing these improvements about will revolutionize conditions. It will raise agriculture to the first place and the highest place in the estimation of the people. It will be the strongest possible magnet to hold the girl and the boy to the farm home. It will make agriculture more pleasant, more profitable and in every way a more desirable vocation.
When I was a boy and went away to school, I entered a class of boys and we were lined up before the principal and each was asked his name and his father’s business; one would answer his father was a banker, another a merchant, another a doctor, a manufacturer, and so on. When it came to me, I said a farmer. The boys all laughed and I was obliged to take it. I licked two or three of them afterward to get my standing on the campus.
We used to think that anybody could run a farm. A story is told of a man who had three sons. One was very smart, one was exceedingly good and one was simple-minded. The father said: “Tom is smart as chain lightning; I am going to make a lawyer of Tom. William is about the best boy I ever knew; you can’t get him to go wrong; I am going to make a preacher of him. But Jack don’t seem to know much of anything, and I will make a farmer of Jack.” (Laughter.)
Let me say to you with all possible emphasis that it takes as much ability to run a farm well as it does to run a bank or a factory, and much more than it does to run for office. (Laughter.)
When the Lever bill was introduced in Congress, it passed the committee and was placed on the calendar and was buried there. The question was to get that bill on the floor for a vote. Upon inquiry I found there was only one way to do it in order to get quick action, and that was to get a petition signed by a majority of the members, asking that the bill be taken from its position on the calendar and placed at the head of the list as unfinished business. Mr. Lever secured the required signatures and the bill was thus advanced to the position of unfinished business. The leaders of both parties rallied to its support and the bill finally passed the House by unanimous vote. It is now before the Senate and we want your help to get it enacted into law before the holiday season arrives.
The mind can hardly grasp the benefits that will flow from this legislation. Let me tell you a little of what scientific farming means. Dr. Hopkins, of the University of Illinois, and one of the world’s authorities, just told me that they raised on an average ninety bushels of corn to the acre, covering a period of six years, and twenty-three bushels of wheat, average for six years. The Ohio experiment station on wheat for twenty years showed an average of about thirty-five bushels, while the average for the whole country was less than fifteen bushels. Denmark raises forty bushels average, many fields returning sixty and seventy-five bushels to the acre. We must do better farming.
During the ten years from 1900 to 1910 our population increased twenty-one per cent., our meat supplying animals decreased more than twenty-five per cent. We have an unparalleled high cost of living, due to the fact that population is pressing hard upon production. In short, we have too few producers and too many consumers. Increased production is not the only thing necessary. It is quite as important that the farm production shall reach the ultimate consumer from the farm at less than the present cost. Our marketing system is cumbersome, unwieldy, wasteful and burdensome. (Applause.) The woman who orders her supplies over the telephone pays more money and gets less than the one who goes to market. I had the honor of speaking before the National Federation of Women’s Clubs at San Francisco on the first day of July. It was the greatest and most intelligent audience I ever faced. They were very enthusiastic and were quick to grasp the points as they were made. This great organization affiliated itself with the National Soil Fertility League, and when they did so we felt it brought to us the greatest assistance that could possibly come. I know of no organization of wider influence than the Women’s Clubs of America. I have heard it said, if you want to get anything done to get a woman after it. (Applause.)
We must re-direct our agriculture; we must raise our meat upon the farms. The ranges are gone. The silo, alfalfa and scientific methods make it possible for the farmer to carry at least twice as much stock upon his farm as he thinks he can carry. In the silo the feed is kept practically green and juicy. You get forty per cent. more out of your corn by putting it through the silo than by handling it in the old way. There is no reason why the cost of producing meat may not be reduced practically one-half. The farmer has given and is giving too much thought to how much he can get for what he raises. It is equally important that he raise more. If he wants 2,400 bushels of corn, it is better to raise it on forty acres with a yield of sixty bushels than to raise it on sixty acres with a yield of forty bushels.
Our plan is to bring home to the farmer the best method that has been determined by the agricultural college and experiment station. We want to get the best results from year to year and at the same time build up the soil. This can be done and this is scientific farming. This is what the whole world needs. The colleges of agriculture and experiment stations have gathered a vast fund of knowledge, and if this were put into practical operation it would double the yield of our farms within a few years and give us a large surplus for export and bring money into the country. We would get richer and richer as the years go by. We would largely supply the world with food. Our position in the councils of nations would be paramount. When it comes to the question of peace or war, the country that has the money and the bread basket is ten times more potent than the nation that only has back of it battleships and armies. (Applause.) So I wish to emphasize that the success of this country rests primarily upon the scientific farming of our fields. Let us remember that no country ever became great and remained so that could not furnish its people with an ample food supply at a moderate cost. To that end we are securing legislation that will put the plan in operation. The Lever measure is a simple one, it creates no new administrative machinery; it simply carries to the farmer and puts to work the information and knowledge that the States and Federal Government have been gathering for fifty years. This whole matter may be likened to a great irrigating system. The United States Department of Agriculture is a dam, it has been gathering and has stored up the knowledge—the water. The colleges of agriculture are the main channels for reaching the various parts of the country; but so long as the water is back of the dam it is doing no good; so long as it remains in the main channels it is accomplishing nothing. What is needed is to get the water to the grass roots, or, in other words, our purpose is to get the information to the actual farmer—the man behind the plow.
Fifty years ago Horace Greeley said, “Go West, young man, and grow up with the country.” If he were here today he would say go South and East, for that is the land of opportunity. In my judgment this Congress ought to meet next year somewhere in the South. That part of the land is entitled to recognition, and you will get a welcome such as you never had before.
In conclusion, I wish to urge that you give us every possible support. We need it. It will help you and it will help us. Let us all work together for reviving agriculture. (Applause.)
(A woman in the audience): “Is it true that Congress is investigating this silo business and under the pure food law is it to be condemned? Also, what must we do in Indiana to cultivate alfalfa?”
Mr. Gross—I have not heard anything about the Federal Government condemning silo, and I do not expect to. Inoculate your soil for alfalfa. You had better take this matter up with your people at Purdue. Ask them what to do. They will send you all the information necessary. They will examine into conditions and tell you just what to do. The most valuable crop today, outside of wheat and corn, is alfalfa. (Applause.)
Chairman White—I have been handed a communication, and I wish to say for the benefit of the gentleman who sent it to the chair that it will be referred to the Executive Committee, which takes up matters of this kind. This is the communication:
“You are requested to make a motion that this organization take steps toward publishing a monthly, or quarterly, magazine, to be known as the National Conservation Magazine. If the society is unable to finance it, there is little doubt that the Carnegie Institute or the Sage Foundation would back it.”
Chairman White—I will now introduce a gentleman who will tell you “The Story of the Air,” Prof. Willis L. Moore, of Washington, Chief of the United States Weather Bureau. (Applause.)