is the envy of the
civilized world, and has drawn thousands to our shores in the hope of
finding comfort and plenty, and yet the total value of our farm products
was only eleven dollars and thirty-eight cents per cultivated acre
according to the last census, while in the little island of Jersey, just
off the English coast, the average annual value of products is over two
hundred and fifty dollars per acre.

Germany has been cultivated nearly eighteen hundred years, the soil is
not naturally so productive nor the climate so favorable as ours, but
the wheat yield there averages more than twice as much as in this
country.

When the most fertile land in the world produces so much less than
poorer lands elsewhere it plainly shows that we are robbing the soil in
order to get the largest cash returns in the shortest possible time and
with the least possible labor.

The American farmer needs to cultivate a much smaller amount of land
thoroughly, to have a soil analysis made of his land in order to know
what crops are best suited to it and what elements are lacking to make
it produce the best. In Illinois more than half a million acres had
become unfit for cultivation. Analysis showed that the soil was too
acid. By mixing limestone dust with the soil the trouble was corrected
and the land reclaimed.

Often it is only necessary to find the cause of some deficiency, or
lack, in the soil, and the remedy will be found to be simple and cheap,
while the result of its use will be to double the crop. Nothing else so
quickly and easily responds to proper treatment, no other resource is so
easily conserved. All the soil needs is proper treatment.

Every bit of waste land should be cultivated for either use or beauty,
or both. If all the lanes and neglected places could be planted with
fruit and nut trees, berry vines, and bushes, herbs or flowers which
need little cultivation after they are planted, our food, in variety and
quantity, would be greatly increased. "The hedge-rows of Old England"
are famous for their beauty and the air of comfort and prosperity they
give. They take the place of the weeds that grow by the country
roadsides in America and which constitute one of the greatest nuisances
of the farmer.

Another thing that should be considered is the marketing of farm
products. Near a city or near a canning factory the soil can be most
profitably used for the raising of vegetables, for which the cost of
cultivation is great