According to the facts above given, it would be fair to infer that a soil becomes more fertile with every year that passes. This would be the case were it not for opposing tendencies. First, the crops grown upon a soil remove considerable quantities of mineral plant food. This alone would not seriously affect the fertility of a soil did not other forces act in conjunction with it. The most important cause of lowering the fertility of soils is the loss of plant food due to drainage. In districts of abundant rainfall, as, for instance, the Eastern United States, sufficient rain falls to soak the soil thoroughly and to drain through and go off as drainage water. The water, in passing through the soil, will dissolve, as far as it can, the soluble ingredients, including the plant foods, and carry them away into the rivers and finally into the ocean. This action, continued for many years, will rob the soil to feed the ocean; in fact, the saltness of the ocean is due, largely, to the substances washed out of the soils. Most of the poor soils of the world have been rendered infertile in this way. If, on the other hand, only a small quantity of rain falls upon the soil—an amount sufficient to soak the soil without draining through—the water will gradually be evaporated back into the air, and there will be no loss of plant food. In such a district the soils, if they are treated right, become richer year by year, even though subjected to tillage, if the tillage be according to our best knowledge.
In every rainless district, or in every district where the rainfall is so slight as to render irrigation necessary, the soils would be expected to be richer than in a place of abundant rainfall. Leaving out of consideration differences due to local conditions, this has been verified by the study of soils from many parts of the world. The soils of an arid district contain more soluble plant food than those of a humid district, and, with proper treatment, will not only raise larger crops, but remain fertile much longer. They will also bear harsher treatment, closer cultivation, and are in every respect superior to the water-washed soils of a humid country. A recent study of the soils of Utah has shown that the fertility of our soils is exceedingly high, and that they will endure long and close cultivation; that is, that because of the peculiar climatic conditions of the State, they can support bountifully a large population.
Several years ago Dr. E. W. Hilgard, an eminent student of climate and soils, threw out the suggestion that upon the facts just discussed rests the explanation of the historical datum that the great nations of antiquity on this and on other continents sought for the abodes the rainless, arid stretches of the world. A large, active population, which does not depend on other peoples for its support, must of necessity possess the most fertile lands, which are found only in districts of limited rainfall. In the whole history of the world, the great granaries of the world have been located on the arid stretches; and on our continent, the great West, largely arid, is becoming the source of the food staples of the nation. Utah is the heart of the arid region of North America; her soils are heavy with wealth of plant food. If the time comes that her valleys be filled with people, crowding in from the nations of the earth, her soils, responding to the better treatment which science is developing day by day, will display their strength, and feed the world, should the demand be made.
III.
"Therefore will I make solitary places to bud and blossom, and to bring forth in abundance, saith the Lord."—Doctrine and Covenants.
Sixty years ago the facts of plant feeding, as just outlined, were practically unknown. The erroneous ideas of the preceding century still held full sway. In 1840 Liebig published his treatise on agricultural chemistry which threw a faint light on the relation of the plant and the soil. During the twenty years following, the indispensable nature of some of the plant foods was ascertained; and it is only within the last ten or fifteen years that the superiority of arid districts over humid ones, for the purpose of supporting man, has been demonstrated. Even today it is a new light which has not been fully received.
In 1842 Joseph the Prophet wrote: "I prophesied that the saints would continue to suffer much affliction and would be driven to the Rocky Mountains * * * and some of you will live to go and assist in making settlements and build cities and see the saints become a mighty people in the midst of the Rocky Mountains." Why did Joseph Smith speak of the Rocky Mountains as a gathering place for his people? Was it simply because the place was far off and offered, apparently, good security? If so, he builded better than he knew. But what prompted Brigham Young to plant his cane by the shore of an alkali lake and say, Here we shall remain? That certainly was not for security only. Perhaps he was tired of wandering? Though he may have been so, yet he was not the man to give up when near something better. Perhaps he thought the valley fair, and the blue mountains may have rested his eyes? If that was the motive of settlement, he, too, builded better than he knew. Certainly it is that these two men who historically hold the responsibility for bringing the Latter-day Saints here, did not know, by the world's learning, that the valleys of Utah are filled with the richest soil, waiting only to yield manifold to the husbandman; for the world did not yet know, and had no means for predicting it. These men were not scientists. They had no laboratories in which, by long hours, over long drawn fires, and among a hundred fumes, to draw out for themselves the law of the fertility of arid soils, which has but recently become the property of modern science. It is not likely that the records of a lost learning, unknown today, taught them this fact. Though they had had such records, they were unlettered men, and the ancient tongues would have been dead indeed to them, had they attempted an interpretation by their own efforts. Why then, did they bring the people here? Was it a chance move? A blind effort, acting out the desperation that comes from long persecution? If an element of chance entered into the location in the valleys of Utah, it was akin to wisdom.
And it was wisdom of the highest kind; at which the world ever stands in reverent wonder; inspiration from the living God. The logic that science, itself, applies to facts in the deduction of its laws, makes it impossible to believe that the settlement of the pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley was a chance move. Nothing, from the point of view of human wisdom, encouraged the pioneers to remain in Utah—they were in the center of a desert; the leaders were urged by many of the company to go on, for there were fairer climes to the west or the south, or on the islands of the sea. But the leaders were possessed of a wisdom higher than that of men, and founded an empire on the wastes of the Great American Desert.
Now, let every reader of this paper consider these wonderful facts: Of the vast possibilities of agriculture in Utah being the same with those of the countries where the great nations of the world have lived; of a people, claiming that the nations shall in the future flee to it for safety, making its home in a place which possesses the capabilities of supporting the nations; and of the choice of that country when it was named a desert; when science, the world's knowledge, did not dream of the fertility of that desert any more than it was able to give a correct explanation of the fertility of the valley of Mesopotamia: and every honest heart will recognize the unseen hand of the God of Israel, guiding the people of God to the destined land.
End of Project Gutenberg's Joseph Smith as Scientist, by John A. Widtsoe