"No, it is not so poor in mineral plant food on the sloping areas,
but even there it is extremely poor in humus and nitrogen. However,
I fear I could not enjoy farming in irregular patches of five or ten
acres, and the level lands of Virginia and Maryland are so
exceedingly poor, that much time and money and work will be required
to put them on a paying basis. There would be no pleasure or
satisfaction in merely robbing other farms to build up mine, as some
of the prosperous truck farmers and dairymen are doing. I should
want to practice a system of soil improvement of unlimited
application so that it would not be a curse to the agricultural
people, as is the case with the man who builds up his farm only at
the expense of other farms.

"We have been speaking of the development of agriculture on the
small tracts of cultivable land in the great manufacturing States of
New England. But, if we would make a fair comparison with a State
like Illinois, we should consider some great agricultural State, as
Georgia, for example, which is also one of the original thirteen.
Georgia is a larger State than Illinois, and Georgia cultivates as
many acres of corn and cotton as we cultivate in corn. But Georgia
land cannot be covered with fertilizer made from Illinois corn, nor
even with seaweed and fish-scrap from the ocean. Her agriculture
must be an independent agriculture, just as the agriculture of
Russia, India, and China must be, just as the agriculture of
Illinois must be, and as the agriculture of all the great
agricultural States must be. What is the result to date? The average
yield of corn in Georgia is down to 11 bushels per acre. This is not
for half of one township, but the average of four million acres for
the last ten years; and this in spite of the fact that Georgia out
more for the common acidulated manufactured so-called complete