Excerpt from Reports of a Course of Lectures: Delivered by the Faculty of the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, to the Farmers of Ohio, January, 1881

The subject which I ask you to consider, and which I want to treat in my own way, and to illustrate by my own facts, is an important one. I designate it as the problem of American agriculture. I shall treat it in two lectures, and with your permission I shall read what I have prepared, because I can go over the ground so much more rapidly. Though many of you have long been out of school. You remember what a problem is. It is, in the language of the books, a question proposed for solution; a question which has not yet received a definite and satisfactory answer. Are there any such questions, any problems, in our agriculture? Their name is legion. They are found in every one of its depart ments. They have all grades of interest and importance. Some of these prob lems concern the processes and modes of operation in treating the soil, plowing, the depth at which we should plow, the modes of seeding, and many others. There are other problems on which the very existence of agriculture as a pur suit in this country depends. To the last class belongs the important question which we are now to consider; namely, How shall the fertility of our soils be perma nently maintained? You see that the, inquiry is one of fundamental importance. If the productive capacity of the soil cannot be maintained, if the soil is doomed to undergo a steady - even though a slow - diminution, the time will come when agriculture will cease to be a profitable and attractive calling within our boundaries. And so I say that the problem is altogether a vital one How shall the fertility of our soils be maintained?

To discuss the question intelligently, let us briefly consider the constitution of the soil, and the conditions of its fertility. What is the soil? You that live on it and by it have an answer ready. You at least know very well what you mean by the term. My answer is in these words: Soil is finely divided rock, mingled with varying proportions of organic, vegetable or animal matter, and so made capable of giving support and foothold to the plants which man cultivates. Perhaps that is a little longer definition than you require. Its composition and its texture vary with the kind of rock from which it is derived, and with the particular agency by which it has been pro duced. Two kinds of forces have been used in its production; chemical forces, and mechanical forces. Two kinds of forces have helped to make the solid rock into the finely'divided materials upon which plants depend for foothold and support.

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