The first oil boom in Illinois was at Casey where they struck oil six or eight years ago, but they say the wells there are dry already and they have to go back to farming again to get a living. Of course if we could get a hundred-barrel well on every ten acres and get a royalty of $400 a day for a few years, it would help out nicely, but the oil business is uncertain and short-lived, whereas, to quote Percy "the soil is the breast of Mother Earth, from which her children must always draw their nourishment."
Some have spoken to Percy about the coal right, but he says if there are ten thousand tons of coal per acre under Poorland Farm, he will save it for Charles Henry before he will allow anyone else to take it out for less than ten cents a ton. He says that just because the United States Government was generous enough to give the settler three hundred and twenty acres of land, and foolish enough to throw in with it three million tons of coal if it happened to lie beneath, is no reason why he should sell it to any coal company or coal trust at the rate of ten tons for one cent, which is the same as ten dollars per acre for the coal right. He says if Uncle Sam ever wants to assume his rightful ownership of all coal, phosphate deposits, or other minerals whose conservation and proper use is essential to the continued prosperity of all the people, then our coal shall be his; but, if he does not want it then he will consider nothing less than leasing on the basis of a royalty of ten cents a ton to be paid to him, his heirs, and assigns, etc.; but even then he wants enough coal left to hold up the earth, so that there will be no interference with the tile drains which he expects sometime to put down at an expense exceeding the original cost of the land. With much love,
ADELAIDE.
P.S.—Percy sends his love to grandma and a photograph for Papa, from which you will see that on such land as ours no limestone or phosphate means no clover.—A. W. J.
The author takes this occasion to say to the kind reader who has had the patience and the necessary interest in the stupendous problem now confronting the American people, of devising and adopting into general practice independence systems of farming that will restore, increase, and permanently maintain the productive power of American farm lands,—to those who have read thus far the _Story of the Soil _and who may have some desire for more specific and more complete or comprehensive information upon the subject,—to all such he takes this occasion to say that this volume is based scientifically upon "Soil Fertility and Permanent Agriculture."
This little book is intended as an introduction to the subject; the other may be classed as technical, but nevertheless can be understood by any one who gives it serious thought. This book tells the true story of the soil, for which the other gives a thousand proofs.
Grateful acknowledgment is here expressed that even the measure of success thus far attained on Poorland Farm has been possible largely through the co-operation of a beloved brother, Carl Edwin, the man who does a world of work, ably assisted by "Adelaide."