Feed The Farm
   What! Feed the farm-feed the soil? Yes, the mother that feeds
us must herself be fed.
   With the light and heat of the sun, Mother Earth can put things
together in plants as food for us-if she has the right things to work
with.
   These things we call elements, and among them are carbon, nitro-
gen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulphur, iron and
water made of hydrogen and oxygen. The soil usually contains a good
quantity of most of these, but often there is a lack of some of them.
   You know something is lacking when the crop does not make a good
growth, but you cannot be sure except by making experiments in which
different elements are added to the soil, or by a chemical analysis.
   Nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium are most often lack-
ing in upland soils. Marsh soils usually have an abundance of nitrogen,
but are lacking in potassium, phosphorus, and, when acid, in calcium.
            WISCONSIN CROPS ZXCZL IN YIEDS
   The yields of Wisconsin crops are already good, better in fact than
the yields of the same crops in other states. Wisconsin yields in 1918
were:
        Spring wheat ...         ......       24.6 bushels   -
        Winter wheat ...          ......      22.0 bushels
        Oats .........                        46.6 bushels
        Barley....                            35.7 bushels
        Rye ....                              17.6 bushels
        Potatoes ....                        112.0 bushels
   In all of these crops Wisconsin has the highest average yield among
the states growing any considerable amount of the crop. These yields
ar6 due to high yielding seed-and manure.
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