Wayne County, Ohio - Agriculture, 1910

Agriculture

The foundation rock upon which the soil of Wayne county is laid, and which has contributed the larger part of its material, is the series of argillaceous shales and sandstones, usually yellowish olive in color, to which geologists have given the name Waverly. It is true that in the eastern and southeastern portions of the county this formation is covered by the strata belonging to the coal measures, but these strata are cut through by valleys which extend down to the Waverly floor.

The upper strata of the Waverly, as found in the central and southern parts of Wayne county, are soft, fine-grained shales, easily ground into dust, only the deeper layers being sufficiently hard for building stone. The decomposition of these shales gives rise to a silty soil, intermediate in texture between clay on the one hand and sand on the other, its particles being so fine and so loosely bound together that the smallest stream of water loosens them from their surroundings and carries them to lower levels.

The soil of the county has lieen modified by the great sheet of movingice which once covered the greater part of Ohio, and whicli in some sections exerted a tremendous influence in the formation of the soil ; hut in Wayne county the effect of glacial action has been comparativelv small, and e\-en where the drift material left by the glacier is most in evidence it consists chiefly of sand and gravel produced l)y the grinding up of rocks Iving a short distance to the northward and very similar in cliaracter to those upon which the drift is laid.

The flat, marshy plain which marks the divide between the drainage towards Lake Erie to the north and the Ohio river to the south lies along the boundary between Wayne and Medina counties, chiefly in the latter county. .\s the drainage from this watershed has moved southward it Ins at once begun the cutting of valleys, small and shallow at first, but growing larger and deeper as the volume of water has been swollen by affluents from the sides, until by the time the south half of the county is reached the entire surface has been eroded into alternations of hill and valley, the hills, which give such beauty to the landscape, being hills simply because the valleys have been dug out between by the floods of ages.

That this cause is adequate to produce the effect no one can doubt who has observed the result of a single heavy shower in a freshly plowed field, or the gullying which results from a single season's rainfall on a neglected hillside.

The result of this tendency to wash is that the hillsides are covered with but a thin sheet of soil, which, though giving good returns for a few years after being put under the plow, soon begins to show the effect of excessive cropping. On the higher and more level lands the soil sheet is thicker, and its producti^'eness in consequence is more permanent than on the slopes where the washing has carried away a larger proportion of the soil.

\Adien the country was first visited by the white man it was covered with a dense forest, and the first labor of the pipneer settler - and strenuous labor it was - was expended in cutting away enough of this forest to give a small field for cultivation.

The location of the pioneer home was determined by a spring, and the multitudes of springs of pure water in Wayne county were a potent factor in securing its rapid settlement. Near the spring the log cabin was built, and around tbe cabin home the trees were cut away, the cleared area enlarging year by year, and for many years the axe and the rifle were the most important implements on the farm - the one extending the area on which bread could be produced, the other supplying a large part of the meat re- C|uired to keep the axe and plow in motion.

As the springs were on the hillsides, it was on the hillsides, when not too steep for cultivation, that the first fields were cleared ; and on these hillsides the loose shales wdiich constitute the upper rock strata lie so near the surface as to give natural drainage - this formation being the cause of the springs, as the water passes readily between the joints of the shales, to be arrested and brought to the surface at lower levels by the denser strata below.

Within a few years the earlier fields on these thin, hillside soils began to show some indication of reduction in yield under the system of continuous cropping, which was the logical system to a farmer who had wrested his little fields from their natural condition at such tremendous effort, and who had, by the very exigencies of his situation, become more woodsman and hunter than farmer; but by the time these symptoms had appeared the axe had penetrated a little farther into the forest and other fields were ready to respond to the plow with full harvests.

Tf these fields were on the more level summit lands where the soil sheet was thicker they did not at first suffer materially from lack of drainage, because the deeply penetrating tree roots as they decayed furnished drainage channels to the rocks below.

The pioneer farmer, therefore, found in Wayne count}" a soil of such physical texture as to be easily worked, so situated as to be perfectly underdrained, and both soil and climate admirably adapted to the growth of winter wheat, and the production of this cereal became the leading industr}' of the county at an early date.

During the first period the state was settled by the hardy pioneers, who flowed into it along three principal lines of migration: ( i) The New England line, coming direct from the New England states - largely from Connecticut - or moving in after a temporary sojourn in New York, and settling the country known as the W estern Reserve and the region to the westward ; (2) the Pennsylvania line, consisting very largely of the people who have come to be known as Pennsylvania Dutch, or Pennsylvania Germans, and of Quakers, who occupied a large part of the middle of the state, and (3) the Virginia-Carolina line, occujiying the southern counties. There were some cross-currents in this migration, as in the New England settlement at Marietta, but the inflow into Wayne county was very largely of the Pennsvlvania Germans, a ])eople noted everywhere for industry and frugal itv.

During this period there were no cities within the state to he fed, and none outside of it that it was practicable to reach with the ox-team transportation of the earlier days, or with the six-horse Pennsylvania wagon which soon made its appearance. There was no navigable stream in the county on which to float away its produce, and the lake, at its nearest point, was forty miles distant from the northern boundary of the county. The only practicable method of marketing farm produce, therefore, was to convert it into meatproducing animals and drive them across the mountains to the cities growingup on the Atlantic coast, and the demand by these cities was very limited.

The clothing of the farmer's family of that day was spun and woven at home from flax and wool grown on the farm; all the food was produced at home except salt, tea, coffee and spices. Sugar, if not a product of every farm in the state, was found in maple groves scattered so generally over the state as to be practically within a day's journey with the ox-team from every farm (one of the writer's early recollections is of the annual bringing home of the barrel of maple sugar, produced in the opposite side of his county).

The implements of husbandry were chiefly such as had been in use for thousands of years. The plow had an irofi share, made by the local blacksmith, and a wooden moldboard made by the farmer himself. The harrow had wooden or clumsy iron teeth ; the farmer's hand was the only seeding machine, just as it had been since the sower first went forth to sow; he reaped his grain with an implement practically identical with the sickle which Farmer Boaz had used three thousand years ago, and trampled it out with oxen or threshed it with a flail of his own making, just as the earliest farmer had done. Probably the actual cash paid out for the implements used on an ordinary farm, outside of the one wagon which served every purpose for which a wheeled vehicle was required, did not exceed twenty-five dollars.

The cast-iron plow made its appearance in the eastern states about the beginning of the. century, but did not come into common use in Ohio before the thirties or later. The grain cradle appeared during the thirties. Seeding, harvesting and threshing machinery followed slowly, so that at the state fair, held in Cleveland in 1852, it is stated by Dr. N. S. Townshend in Howe's "Historical Collections," there were shown grain drills, corn planters, broadcast wheat sowers, corn shellers for horse and hand power, corn and cob crushers and one- and two-horse cultivators.

The Ohio canal was completed in 1830, thus giving to the counties along its route water transportation for their products, and the farmers of

Wayne county began hauling their wheat to the shipping points along the line of this canal. The Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago railroad was built during the early fifties, thus opening the era of steam transportation.

This mid-century period marks the transition between the agriculture of the sickle and ox-cart on the one hand, and that of farm machinery and steam transportation on the other, the transition between the ancient and the modern.

In 1846 a slice was cut off the western side of Wayne county and added to the new county of Ashland, so that the census statistics of 1850 are the earliest data respecting the county as now constituted. This census gave the county a population of 32,981. The collection of agricultural statistics was begun in Ohio in 1850, hut the statistics for Wayne county were not collected until 1851. In 1853 the lands listed for taxation in the county were appraised by the state board of equalization at a total of $7,707,222, or $22.47 acre,* and the statistics collected by the township assessors show the following annual average production of the principal farm crops and numbers of farm animals for the nine-year period, 1851-59;

If we estimate that ten sheep or hogs will consume about the same quantity of feed as one cattle beast, the livestock kept during this period was ecjui valent to about 49,366 cattle, or 100 cattle to 159 acres in the three principal crops. It will lie observed that there were nearly as many acres in wheat as in corn and oats combined.

In addition to the crops above mentioned, an average area of 24.054 acres was reported as in meadow. 13,623 acres as in clover, and 6.936 acres as in minor crops during this period, the minor crops including 2,323 acres in barley, 1,296 acres in potatoes, 1,267 ^cres in flax, 1,130 acres in rye. 762 acres in buckwheat, 133 acres in sorghum and 25 acres in tobacco, making a

The Development Period

During the thirty years, 1850 to 1880, mechanical invention wrought greater changes in human industry than had taken place in all the preceding ages. In agriculture this era witnessed the substitution of the self-binding harvester and steam thresher for the sickle and flail, and in long-distance transportation the steam railway train on its steel track displaced the wagon drawn by oxen or horses.

During this period several great wars occurred ; The Crimean war during the fifties; our own Civil war during the sixties, and the Franco-German in 1870. each of which caused an abnormal demand for foodstuffs, which the rapidly increasing facilities for production and transportation enabled the Ohio farmer to profit by. In Wayne county the following averages were maintained during the period 1860-69: ,

The war period was one of labor scarcity, hence there was no increase in the area under cultivation, while the high price of wool stimulated a great increase of the sheep flocks. The reduction of the wool tariff soon after the close of the war, combined with the cessation of the waste produced by the war itself, resulted in lower prices for wool, which caused many to lose their interest in sheep, and the number kept in the county diminished rapidly.

The Franco-German war at the beginning of the seventh decade of the century contributed to the mtaintenance of high prices for foodstuffs, and the area under cultivation in Wayne county was extended to a total of 95,527 acres in wheat, oats and corn, divided as below, while the livestock was reduced to the ecpiivalent of 49,447 cattle.

This was a period not only of large production but of fairly good prices, the average December price of wheat for the United States being estimated by the national department of agriculture for the ten years at 99.3 cents, that of corn at 40.5 cents and that of oats at 33.7 cents. These values, it is true, seemed low, after the nominally high prices based upon the inflated currency of the war period, but as compared with what was to follow they meant prosperity to the careful farmer, and the Wayne county farmer, as a rule, was prosperous.

At the end of the decade the farms of the county were appraised for taxation at a total of $12,975,053. or $37.66 per acre, an increase of 68 per cent over the valuation of 1853.

The Expansion Period

The national statistics show that in 1870 nearly 19,000,000 acres of wheat were harvested in the United States, yielding nearly 236,000,000 bushels. By 1880 the area in wheat had doubled, and the total yield had risen proportionately. This sudden increase in production was due to* the rapid extension of railways through the west and northwest, on the one hand, and to the improvement of agricultural machinery, especially to the perfection of the automatic binder, on the other. For a time the market absorbed the increased production of wheat at remunerative prices, but by the early eighties production had overtaken consumption and a depression of prices set in which continued downward for ten years, falling to an average export price for the year ending June 30, 1896, of 65 U cents per bushel.

Not only did wheat values diminish, hut those of livestock and its ])roducts also, owing to the rapid development of the free range industry in the West, and many farmers either aliaudnued altogether the keeping of livestock or greatly reduced the number kept, selling the grain, which had previously been fed, to the elevators, which started up at every railway station, and endeavoring to recoup themselves for the low price per bushel of grain by extending the area in crops so as produce more bushels. The trend in Wayne county is shown by the following table, giving the average production of the principal cereals and the livestock population for the ten years, 1880-89:

The area in wheat, the cash crop, was increased from the average of 41,208 acres for the seventies to that of 53,739 acres for the eighties, an increase of more than one-third, while the area in corn - the meat producing crop - remained stationary, and that in oats was diminished.

The introduction of commercial fertilizers in Ohio was practically coincident with the development of the ranch and range industries of the West, and duririig the decade under review the farmers of Wayne county expended an annual average of $20,646 for such fertilizers, or thirty-nine cents for each acre sown in wheat.

Production Of Cereal Crops, 189O-99

The wheat area is diminished and that of corn and oats is increased, but the continued decrease of livestock shows that part of the corn and oats have gone to the elevator as well as the wheat.

The purchase of commiercial fertilizers doubled during the period, the average annual expenditure amounting to $41,643, or eighty cents for each acre in wheat.

It is true that the wheat crop did not receive all the fertilizers used, but much the larger part was given to that crop. Under this system the yield of wheat, which had been brought to an average of 16.8 bushels per acre for the seventies by the use of manure, was held at 16.9 bushels during the eighties, but fell to 16.1 bushels during the nineties, while the yield of corn, which had reached 41.2 bushels during the seventies, went back to 34.3 bushels during the eighties, and that of oats, which rose from 34.2 bushels during the seventies to 36.2 bushels during the eighties, fell to 34.9 bushels for the nineties.

The use of fertilizers practically began during the eighties, so that the high level of crop yields during the seventies was attained under the system of livestock husbandry which had prevailed up to that period, and the increasing expenditure for fertilizers during the next two decades was not sufficient to maintain the yields at the level then attained.

The effect of the low prices which prevailed during the last decade of the century is shown in the decennial appraisement at its close, under which the farm lands of Wayne county were listed at a total valuation of $10,477,- 580, or $30.46 per acre.

This reduction in valuation, however, does not fully represent the actual conditions. Very few farm buildings were constructed during this ten-year period, and old buildings were left unpainted, so that the reputation of the county for having the finest farm improvements in the state has been barely maintained. When farms changed owners, it was on the basis of far lower valuations than had been current twenty years earlier, and while there were still a great many farmers in the county who were in comfortable financial circumstances there were a great many more who found it necessary to practice very close economy.

Taking the present decade, the first of the new century, we find that during the nine years, 1900 to 1908, the county's productions were as follows :

Production Of Cereal Crops, I9Oo-I908

These figures show that the area in wheat has been materially reduced, while that in corn and oats has been increased. They also show a material increase in the yield per acre for all three of these crops, an increase due in part to a better system of crop rotation, in part to better seasonal conditions, and in part to the larger use of fertilizers.

The Scientific Period

By the close of the century practically all the land in the United States which is susceptible of cultivation without irrigation was occupied with farms. The range area was restricted to lands unfit for cultivation, and in many cases these lands had been reduced in productiveness by too close pasturing.

The area sown in wheat was still being extended in the Northwest, but the yield per acre was maintained only by bringing fresh lands under the plow every year, as the yield was diminishing on the older soils. The urban population was increasing so steadily, however, that with the advent of the new century the proportion of the wheat crop exported fell to 24.7 per cent for the eight years, 1900-7, as against 33.1 per cent for the nineties, 29.9 per cent for the eighties and 24.6 per cent for the seventies, and this notwithstanding the fact that the total production for the last period has been nearly thirty per cent greater than for the preceding period and more than double that of the seventies.

The climax of wheat production was reached in 1901, at nearly 50,000,- 000 acres, yielding nearly 750,000,000 bushels. No crop produced since that date has equaled this record, either in area or total yield, and the price of wheat has been gradually rising since the beginning of the century. There will be a further expansion of wheat territory into the Canadian Northwest, but it does not seem at all probable that the increase in area brought under wheat from henceforth can more than keep pace with the increasing demand from our growing population, and the outlook for remunerative prices for wheat is certainly very favorable. This is a matter of prime importance to AVayne county, for, as has already been stated, its soil and climatic conditions are especially adapted to the culture of this cereal, as is shown by the prominence it has occupied in the agriculture of the county throughout the period under record.

Minor Crops

In addition to the area devoted to the four principal crops, corn, oats, wheat and hay, the statistics show the following- areas devoted to other purposes during the present decade :

Average Areas, I9Oo-I908

The potato crop has become one of great importance in Wayne county, the soil being especially adapted to this crop, and the annual area in potatoes has increased from 3,000 acres in 1900 to 6,000 acres in 1908.

Wayne county is also a large producer of onions, grown on the muck lands in the northern and eastern parts of the county, about 250 acres being annually devoted to this crop.

Teie Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station

Ill the spring of 1891 the State Legislature passed an act authorizing the removal of the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station from its location on the lands of the Ohio State University, in Columlius, to any county in the state which would offer a donation to provide for the purchase of lands and the erection of buildings for the use of the station. Within a few weeks after the passage of this law offers were received liy the lioard of control of the station from the commissioners of Wayne, Clarke and Warren counties, and after consideration of these offers and of the soil conditions in the several counties, the offer of Wayne county was accepted by the board of control and ratified by the people of the county, at a special election held for that purpose.

Pursuant to the law, the county commissioners issued bonds for eightyfive thousand dollars, the amount of the donation agreed upon. These bonds were sold, the money paid into the state treasui'y, and three adjoining farms and two smaller tracts, comprising a total area of four hundred and seventy acres, the nearest point being one mile south of the court house in Wooster, were purchased and buildings were commenced.

At this point a dissatisfied citizen of the county entered suit to test the constitutionality of the law under which the bonds of the county were issued. The common pleas and circuit courts affirmed the validity of the law, one of the circuit judges dissenting. The supreme court, by a vote of four to one, reversed the decision of the lower courts on the ground that the citizens of a county were being taxed for the support of an institution whose work was conducted for the benefit of the state at large, the coi'rt holding that the superior advantages possessed by Wayne county because of the location of the station on its soil and within convenient distance of its farmers did not offset the general principle above mentioned

This litigation occupied about two years, and necessarily retarded the work of the station, as during its continuance the Legislature was unwilling to appropriate money for permanent improvements, hut after the final decision of the supreme court the Legislature redeemed the bonds issued by the county and began making appropriations for buildings and other necessary equipment.

The station had been moved to its new location during the summer of 1892, and immediately began preparing for experimental work by the erection of greenhouses and other buildings and by tile-draining and laying off in permranent plots of one-tenth acre each about seventy-five acres. After the settlement of the litigation affecting the station, the state appropriations became larger. Substantial buildings were erected and, the station's permanency being assured, its 'work expanded year by year, being carried on not only in the fields, orchards, barns and laboratories at Wooster, but reaching out over the state in the establishment of substations or testfarms in different sections, and in co-operative work carried on with the assistance of hundreds of farmers, located in practically every county of the state.

That the station has succeeded in some degree in serving the purpose for which it was established is indicated by the increasing support given it by the state. When first established, in 1882, the appropriation made for its use was three thousand dollars. This was increased the next year to five thousand dollars, and remained at that sum until 1887, when the national government undertook the support of an agricultural experiment station in every state under an act introduced by Hon. W. H. Hatch, of Missouri, and hence called the "Hatch Act," and which provides for the annual appropriation to each state and territory from the United States treasury of fifteen thousand dollars for this purpose.

On the passage of this act the state withdrew its support from the Ohio station, but after a year or two the Legislature began the- appropriation of small amounts, for special purposes, beginning with one of two thousand dollars, made in 1889, ^ small greenhouse. These special appropriations have been increased from year to year until in 1909 the total amount directly appropriated to the station reached one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars, besides the privilege of using several thousand dollars' worth of paper for the printing of its bulletins.

In 1906 the Hatch Act was supplemented by a second national law, introduced by the late Llenry C. Adams, of Wisconsin, and which provides a fund, beginning with five thousand dollars and increasing by two thousand dollars each year until the total shall amount to fifteen thousand dollars, and which is known as the Adams fund. This fund is strictly restricted to the purposes of scientific research, and is all the more useful on account of this fact, because it permits the undertaking of investigations dealing with fundamental principles, a class of investigations which sometimes seem to have but little practical application, and yet out of which have come results of the highest usefulness to humanity.

As at present organized the station's work is divided into the departments of administration, agronomy (or field crops), animal husbandry, botany (including study of seeds and of diseases of plants), chemistry, co-operative experiments, entomology, forestry, horticulture, nutrition and soils, each department having a speci;dist at its head with one or more scientific assistants and clerks and laborers, the staff of the station during T909 reaching a total of one hundred and fifty persons.

In addition to the land occupied liy the station in Wayne county, it has a test farm of three hundred acres in Meigs county, on which the problems peculiar to tbe liilly regions of soutlieastern Ohio are being studied, and one of one hundred and twenty-five acres at Strongsville, in southern Cuyahoga county, devoted to the study of the thin, white clay soils of that region, while it holds under ten-year lease a farm of fifty-three acres at Germantown, Montgomery county, devoted in part to the culture of tobacco and in part to the study of soil fertility, and two fields, one of twenty acres at Findlay, Hancock county, and one of ten acres at Boardman, Mahoning county, which are being occupied under perpetual lease as demonstration fields.

On these tracts are permanently located more than two thousand plots of land, the larger portion containing one-tenth acre each, and of the treatment and produce of which the station has a definite record, reaching over twelve to sixteen years in many cases.

In addition to the study of soil fertility, some of the more important features of the station's work are the comparison of varieties of cereals, forage crops, vegetables and fruits - more than one thousand varieties of fruits being under observation in its orchard - the study of methods for the control of insects and fungous diseases of plants ; the nutrition of animals and the various problems connected with forestry.

As the station is located in Wayne county, and on a soil fairly representing that of the county as a whole, its study of soil fertility is of great importance to this county. This study has demonstrated that it is easily possible and thoroughly practicable to produce much larger crops than the average of those now grown in the county, as the station has produced thirty to forty bushels of wheat to the acre as an average for ten-year periods, or larger in its experimental work, with corresponding yields of corn, oats and clover, and is duplicating these yields in its general farm work, on ten-acre fields. These results, moreover, have been accomplished by methods which have paid the cost of the increase and left a large margin of clear profit; methods which are in reach of every farmer, however straitened his circumstances, and which, when put in operation, will steadily increase the productiveness of the soil.

Some of the farmers in the county are already applying these methods, in whole or in part, and are obtaining results which confirm those shown at the station. These methods consist simply in draining such land as needs drainage ; in the practice of a systematic crop rotation, in which clover or a similar crop is groAvn eveiy third or fourth year; in the conversion of the corn, hay and straw into manure, the careful saving of this manure and its reinforcement with some carrier of phosphorus, to replace that carried away in the wheat and milk, and bones and tissues of the animials' sold ; in the use of lime and in the careful tillage which is now generally practiced.

ally accomplished b}- applying to it a part of the labor which is now wasted by tilling two or three acres to get the produce that one acre should yield.

But the present yield of wheat in Wayne county is far short of am easily possible and thoroughly practicable attainment. One of the three adjoining farms purchased by the experiment station on its removal to Wayne county in 1892 had been rented for many years prexious to its purchase by the station, and on this farm a series of experiments in the maintenance and increase of sod fertility by the use of systematic crop rotation, with fertilizers and manures, was begun in 1893. These experiments hace now been in progress for sixteen years, and following are some of the results attained :

In one experiment, corn, oats, wheat, clover and timothy are grown in a five-year rotation on five tracts of land, each crop being grown every season. One-third of the land is left continuously without fertilizers or manure, and on this area the a^^erage yields per acre have been as below :

Yields Of Unfertilized Land In Five-Year Rotation

During the same five-year periods under consideration the average yields per acre in Wayne county, as computed from the statistics collected bv the township assessors, have been as follows :

These county yields are considerably larger than the unfertilized station yields, but during these three periods the county expended the following sums for fertilizers, these fertilizers being used chiefly on the wheat crop; First period, $40,216 per annum; second period, $59,830 per annum; third period, $88,445 per annum.

The considerable decrease in the clover yields at the station during the second five years of this test called attention to the lack of lime in the soil, and, beginning with the crop of 1900, lime was applied to half the land in the test as it was being prepared for corn, using burnt lime at the rate of a ton per acre, or ground limestone in double that cpantity, and spreading it over botb fertilized and unfertilized land. To this liming, therefore, is to be ascribed a part of the increase shown during the last 'five-year period.

Each of the five tracts used in this test is divided into thirty plots of one-tenth acre each. Plot two in each tract, or half an acre in total, has received every five years 320 pounds per acre of acid phosphate; 80 pounds each on corn and oats and 160 pounds on wheat. The average yields on these plots have been as below ;

The acid phosphate has produced a considerable increase of crop, both before and after liming, showing that this soil is hungry for phosphorus. If we value acid phosphate at a fraction over $16.00 per ton, or $2.60 for the 320 pounds used on each rotation, and rate corn at 40 cents per bushel, oats at 30 cents, wheat at 80 cents, hay at $8.00 per ton, stover at $3.00 and straw at $2.00, the total net increase due to the 320 pounds of acid phosphate, after paying for the fertilizer, has been worth $5.90 for the first five years, $14.77 second five years and $21.72 for the third five

The cost of the lime is not deducted for the third period, because both fertilized and unfertilized laud was limed, and other comparisons, not shown in these statements, show that the cost of liming has been much more than reco'vered in the general increase of crop. Not only has the lime increased the unfertilized yield, but it has augmented the effect of the fertilizers.

Under this application of acid phosphate the yields at the station and for the county show comparatively little difference during the first two periods, but with the addition of lime at the station the yields for the third period are decidedly greater than those for the county. It will be observed that the county yields of corn and oats show a marked falling off during the third period. The increased yield of wheat and hay is easily accounted for by the greatly increased use of fertilizers, lint the hay increase in the county is much smaller than that at the station, where the additional expenditure has been for lime instead of fertilizer.

On another series of plots (No. ii) the same dressing of acid phosphate has been applied, but re-enforced with 480 pounds of nitrate of soda and 260 pounds of muriate of potash, the whole application being divided between the three cereal crops, and increasing the total cost to $23.50 per acre for each rotation ; the outcome has been as below :

Yields From Complete Fertilizer

The increase from this treatment has had the following values over the yields of the unfertilized land: First five years, $26.39; second five years.

.$42.43: third five years, $49.96. Deducting the cost of the fertilizer, tlie net gain has been: b'or the first fi\-e years. $2.80; for the second five yeirs.

This treatment, therefore, enormously expensive as it has been, li.as l)roduced a greater net ])rofit than any ])artial a])plication of fertilizers.

spent for nitrogen and potash and only $2.60 for phosphorus. Whatever system of agriculture we may follow, except the production of butter or sugar, there must be some loss of phosphorus, as this element is carried away from the farm in large cpiantity in the cereal grains and in the bones and milk of animals, so that if the supply in the soil is to remain undiminished there must be a systematic return, either through the purchase of fertilizing substances or of feeding stuff s ; but if all the hay, straw and stover and a considerable part of the grain produced on the farm be fed there and the resultant manure carefully saved and returned to the soil, there will be but little loss of potassium, since the greater part of this element consumed by the plant in its growth is left in the stem and leaves. Most of the nitrogen contained in the coarse feeds will also be recovered in the manure, while the growing of leguminous crops for feeding will tend to replace the losses of this element. If, therefore, it were possible to produce on the farm the nitrogen and potassium required to produce the yield shown on Plot 1 1 in this experiment, leaving only the phosphorus to purchase, the net gain would be greatly augmented.

On another part of this same farm .corn, wheat and clover have been grown in a three-year rotation since 1897, in a comparison of different methods of treating barnyard manure. One-third of this land also has been left continuouslv without fertilizer or manure, and its yield per acre has been as below :

Yields Of Unfertilized Land In Three-Year Rotation

The low yield of wheat during the first period was partly due to Hessian fly ; the corn crop shows that the growing of clover one year in three on this land, which had previously been largely depleted of its fertility by exhaustive cropping, has not been sufficient to maintain the rate of production.

On Plot 15 in this test barnyard manure has been applied at the rate of eight tons per acre, the mjanure being taken from an open barnyard, after several months' exposure to the weather, and plowed under for corn, the wheat and clover following without any further manuring or fertilizing. The outcome has been as follows :

Yields From Open-Yard Manure

At the valuations previously employed, the increase due to the manure has been worth $16.00 per acre, or $2.00 per ton of manure, during the first period, and $22.73 acre, or $2.84 per ton of manure, during the second.

Alongside of the land thus treated another plot has received the same quantity of fresh manure, made from the same animals, but taken directly from the stable to the field, without exposure to the weather. The yields from this treatment have been as below :

Yields From Fresh Stable Manure

In this case the increase during the first period has been worth $21.24 ])er acre, or $2.65 per ton of manure, and during the second period $30.35 ]ier acre, or $3.80 per ton of manure.

On another plot in this test the fresh manure has had acid phosphate mixed with it, at the rate of 40 pounds per ton of manure, a few weeks before spreading the manure on the land. The result of this treatment is shown below ;

Yields From Phosphated Fresh Manure

The total value of the increase from this treatment has amounted to $33.36 for the first period and $43.56 for the second, or $3.87 and $5.12 per ton of manure, after deducting $2.60 per acre for the cost of the 320 pounds of acid phosphate used on the manure.

In other words, the combination of 320 pounds of acid phosphate, costing $2.60, with nitrate of soda and muriate of potash costing $20.90, has produced on five acres of land during the last five years an average total increase worth $50.00 per acre, or $10.00 per acre annually, while the combination of the s'ame Cjuantity of acid phosphate with eight tons of fresh stable manure has produced on three acres during the same period an increase to the value of $43.50, or $14.52 per acre annually. The eight tons of manure, therefore, have produced an effect 40 per cent greater than that caused by $20.90 expended in the most effective carriers of fertilizer-nitrogen and potash.

It may be objected that these experiments have been made on such small areas of land that they are not a safe guide to general farm practice. Following is the answer to this objection :

Another part of the farm belonging to the station has been used for the comparison of varieties of corn, oats and wheat, these crops being grown in succession and followed by one year in clover, thus making a four-year rotation. The work rvas begun in 1893, and ten acres of land is devoted to each crop every season, the entire test including forty acres.

For the first ten years it was the practice to plant the corn on clover sod, without any manure or fertilizer. The oats, following the corn, rvas likewise left untreated, while the wheat received a top dressing of open-yard manure, applied after plowing and before seeding, at the rate of about nine tons per acre. The result of this treatment was a ten-year average yield of 48.7 bushels of corn, followed by 52.2 bushels of oats, 19.9 bushels of wheat, and 2.7 tons of hay.

Beginning with 1904, the system was changed, and the clover sod intended for corn 'was dressed during the fall and early winter with phosphated manure, produced by steers or dairy cows and kept under, cover until the field was ready for it, when it was hauled out and spread at the rate of about tweh'e tons per acre. After the manure was plowed under lime was applied to the surface and harrowed in at the rate of one ton per acre. The oats, as previously, followed the corn without treatment, but the wheat received a complete fertilizer instead of manure, the fertilizer being made up from tankage, steamed bone meal, acid phosphate and muriate of potash for the fall application, followed by nitrate of soda in April, the materials being used at a total rate of 350 to 400 pounds per acre and mixed in such proportions as to give a percentage composition for the fall application of about 4 per cent ammonia, 14 to 16 per cent phosphoric acid and 3 to 4 per cent potash.

The outcome of this treatment has been an increase in the corn yield to an average per acre of 73.8 bushels for the five years, 1904 to 1908, followed by averages of 55.1 bushels of oats, 36.6 bushels of wheat and 4.33 tons of hay.

Comparing these yields with the unfertilized yields obtained in the five-year rotation first described, nve have a gain of 42.8 bushels of corn; 20.6 bushels of oats; 22.9 bushels of wheat and 3.32 tons of hay, the whole having a value of $68.18. Deducting from this $2.00 for the floats used on the manure, $6.40 for the fertilizer used on the wheat and $2.60 for half the cost of liming, since only half the land in the five-year rotation had been limed, we have a balance of $57.18, or $4.76 for each ton of manure used.

The soil upon which these experiments have been made is certainly no better naturally than the average soils of Wayne county. It is true that it has the advantage of being well drained, which is an important point, but the topography of the county as a whole is such as to make drainage easily practicable wherever it is needed. I.et us, therefore, consider the possilile effect of airplying to Wayne county as a whole the system of management which has produced the results above described.

In round numbers this would have given 1,100,000 bushels more corn, 700,000 bushels more oats, 380,000 bushels more wheat and 47,000 tons more hay than was actually harvested, the whole worth a million and a third of dollars, estimating corn at 40 cents a bushel, oats at 30 cents, wheat at 80 cents and hay at $8.00 per ton.

Of course these larger yields would not have been produced without extra cost, the first item of which would have been better drainage. As a whole, Wayne county is fortunate in its natural drainage; the rolling topography of most of the county gives excellent surface drainage, and the large areas in which the loosely stratified shales lie within a few feet of the surface give the most perfect underdrainage, so that there is comparatively little artificial drainage required. While no data are available from which anything more than the merest guess dan be made as to the amount of artificial drainage needed, I believe that an expenditure of $25 per acre on half the area under cultivation, or $2,000,000 for the county, would be sufficient, if well directed, to put the whole into position to produce the crops above indicated.

Next to drainage comes the need of lime. There are a few fields in the county, chiefly on newly-cleared land, on which this need is not yet urgent, but the territory over which lime must be applied before full har- A^ests can be obtained is steadily increasing, and it is only a question of

Next to liming comes the production of more manure and the more careful use of that which is produced. The present livestock of the county produces about 165,000 tons of manure each winter, or about half enough to dress 41,000 acres of corn at the rate of eight tons per acre, provided it were saved and used without waste. But the livestock of the county should be doubled, even though it might sometimes be necessary to charge a part of the cost of handling the livestock to the soil fertility account. In the long run and under judicious management livestock will pay its way and leave the manure as an unincumbered asset.

The money expended for fertilizers on the average of the last five years ($88,000 annually ) would purchase 6.000 tons of acid phosphate, or 10,000 tons of floats, if bought in car loads. This would be sufficient to give each ton of the manure from 75,000 cattle a dressing of 40 pounds of acid phosphate or 60 pounds of floats, and would thus restore to the soil all the phosphorus withdrawn by present cropping, and begin the restoration of that which has been drawn from the soil and shipped out of the county under the system of husbandry which has hitherto prevailed.

For a time the wheat crop would respond profitably to additional fertilizing, but under this system the quantity of fertilizers required to be used separately from tbe manure would gradually diminish.

The drainag'e of the land is a pemianent improvement, and its cost should therefore he distributed over a term of years. Let us charge 10 per cent of the drainage cost annually, 6 per cent to interest and 4 per cent to a sinking fund to liquidate the principal.

The station's experiments indicate that lime should lie used at the rate of about a ton per acre at the first application, but that after the aciditv of the soil is once neutralized less lime is required. The annual application of half a ton of lime per acre to the corn crop would probably lie a liberal estimate.

The present expenditure for fertilizers would cover the cost of phosphating the manure, hut for a time it will pay to continue fertilizing the wheat cro]) at a rate even more liberal than that now practiced.

riie feeding of livestock will in .some cases involve more labor than would be rer|uired to haul the produce to market, hut in tlie majority of cases ])robahly less. There will, of course, be mucb more produce to handle.

aliout 100,000 tons of grain and hay, in fact, but will be largely offset by the additional value of the stover and straw. Let us, however, allow one diollar ]ier ton, or $100,000 per annum, for this extra work. Our account will then stand as below :

This will still leave about three-quarters of a million dollars annually in the Wayne county farmers' pockets over and above what they are now getting.

There are those who will say that it is impossible for them to make the expenditure necessary to bring their land into the condition required to make these yields, l)ut a large part of this expenditure is in the form of labor, and it would lie better to devote a part of the labor which is now expended in working two or three acres to get the produce of one in draining and fertilizing the one acre, even though another acre lay idle for a year or so in consequence.

Reed, of Dalton, Sug^arcreek township. The first address was delivered by William Turner, then of Wooster, but later of Cleveland. The first fair was held in the grove near the later residence of D. O. Liggett, where the exhibitions were continued until 1854.

January 24, 1859, the society contracted with E. Quinby, Jr., for eight acres of land on Xorth INIarket street, where until 1869 its exhibitions were Iiehl. For numerous reasons these g'rounds were sold and others purchased of Henry Myers, consisting of twenty-four acres, a short distance to the west of \Vooster. Here the liuildings have been made of a permanent character. There is also much interest in speeding of fast horses, annually, on a fine race course. The annual exhibits of farm, garden and orchard from all over Wavne county are indeed a credit to the management and patrons themselves, \\diile the trotting horse craze has somewhat taken a prominent place in the annual fair, yet the display of agricultural products and of fine livestock, together with beautiful exhibits made Iw the ladies of the county, in way of fancy work, art and all that beautifies the home, is annually in evidence in large quantities.

The present (1909) officers of the association that owns and manages this county fair are as follow-s : John C. McClaran, president; J. S. McCoy, vice-president; \\k A. Wilson, treasurer; G. J. Eyliright, secretary.

Several of the farmers residing in the vicinity of Wooster, who felt that their interests would be greatly enhanced by organization, gathered at a meeting called for February 21, 1888, at the home of R. D. Firestone, south of Wooster, to discuss the subject of organizing. The result was the above-named society, which has had an unbroken existence to the present date. A yearly program is carefully prepared by a committee appointed by the president. These meetings are held at the homes of the membership. All subjects pertaining to the farm, the household, good citizenship, good morals, etc., are ably discussed. During the first years of the organization the society planned an annual farmers' institute. But when the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station was located here in Wayne county, this organization was eager and zealous in working for its establishment. Among other important measures advocated early was the establishment of the rural free delivery system. Today they are earnestly working for the establishment of the parcels post system and postal savings banks. The «ocial feature of the association is counted by its members as a great factor.

I'his organization is one of two \'ery successful farmers' societies within Wayne county. It is styled the Plain Township Agricultural Association and has for its object the improvement of agriculture, that the life of the husbandman may be made more profitable and less laborious, hence more pleasant and desirable.

Gill, John C. Sidle, C. Rittenhouse, W. A. Lehr, G. E. Kean and John Span*. The roll of members constitutes more than fifty of the best people of Plain township.

This society has held three independent institutes, that were distinguished for their social, musical and literary excellence. The outside speakers were the best in Ohio, Thorne, Hickman and Selb}*.

This club affords a means of training for both old and young, in original thought, self-command and public address, that is beyond comparison. They point with much pride to one of its members - J. C. Sidle - as a rising voung figure in the list of public speakers.