60.4 bushels of corn 26.5 bushels of wheat 2.16 tons of hay
"These are the actual yield, and by any method of computation yet proposed, each dollar invested in raw phosphate has paid back much more than has a dollar invested in acid phosphate."
"And was the use of the raw phosphate really profitable?" asked Mr.
West.
"Well, you might figure that out for yourself," Percy replied, "preferably using the average prices for your own locality for corn, wheat and clover. As I figure it at prices below the ten-year average for Illinois, the raw phosphate paid about eight hundred per cent. net on the investment."
"Eight hundred per cent! You must mean eight per cent. net.
"No, Sir, I mean eight hundred per cent. net, but you had better take the data and make your own computations. But does it not seem strange that, with such positive knowledge as this available, many of the Illinois landowners who have managed to sell off enough of their original stock of fertility in grain or stock at good prices to enable them to more than pay for their lands, should continue to invest their surplus in more land with hope that it will pay them eight per cent. interest, when they could secure many times that much interest from investing in the permanent improvement of the land they already own?"
"Perhaps it is not so strange," replied Mr. West. "I fear that some of their ancestors did the same thing in Virginia and other Eastern States until the land became poor, and then of course they were 'land poor.' But, say, that 'stone soup' wouldn't be so bad for those Ohio landowners, would it? I should think they would avail themselves of the positive information from their experiment station. Speaking of soup, I wonder if it isn't time for lunch! But tell me; are the Illinois farmers doing anything with raw phosphate?"
"Yes, they are doing something, but by no means as much as they ought. About two months ago a group of the leading farmers from our section of the State went up to Urbana to look over the experiment fields, some of which have been carried on since 1870. The land is the typical corn belt prairie, and consequently the results should be of very wide application. Well, as a result of that day's inspection of the actual field results, an even twelve carloads of raw phosphate were ordered by those farmers upon their return home; and I learned of another community where ten carloads were ordered at once after a similar visit. As an average of the last three years the yield of corn on those old fields has been 23 bushels per acre where corn has been grown every year without fertilizing, 58 bushels where a three-year rotation of corn, oats and clover is followed, and in the same rotation where organic matter, limestone, and phosphorus have been applied the average yield has been 87 bushels in grain farming and 92 bushels in live-stock farming.
"I attended the State Farmers' Institute last February, and there I met many men who have had several years' experience with the raw rock. Usually they put on one ton per acre as an initial application and plow it under with a good growth of clover; and, afterward, about one thousand pounds per acre every four years will be ample to gradually increase the absolute total supply of phosphorus in the soil, even though large crops are removed.
"A good many of our thinking farmers are now using one or two cars of raw phosphate every year, and they are figuring hard to keep up the organic matter and nitrogen. The most encouraging thing is the very marked benefit of the phosphate to the clover crop, and of course more clover means more corn in grain farming, and more corn and clover means more manure in live-stock farming.