THE DIAGNOSIS AND PRESCRIPTION
WINTERBINE, ILLINOIS,
December 4, 1 903
Mr. T. O. Thornton, Blairville, VA.
MY DEAR SIR:—I beg to report that I returned home a few days ago and found my mother well and busy as usual. We have definitely decided that we will not accept your kind offer to sell us a part of your farm, but we appreciate nevertheless the sacrifice, at least from the standpoint of sentiment, which Mrs. Thornton and Miss Russell were willing to make, in order to permit us to secure such a farm as we might want in a splendid situation.
As a matter of fact we are thinking very seriously of purchasing a farm in Southern Illinois. My mother much prefers to remain in Illinois, and for some reasons I have the same preference on her account.
While in Washington I was fortunate enough to find that a soil survey had been completed for your county and also that a partial ultimate analysis had been made of the common loam soil of your farm, such as we sampled. Following are the number of pounds per acre for the surface soil to a depth of six and two-thirds inches,—that is, for two million pounds of soil.
610 pounds of phosphorus
13,200 pounds of potassium
1,200 pounds of magnesium