STEWARDSHIP OF THE SOIL
WORST
The
STEWARDSHIP
OF THE SOIL
The Stewardship
of the Soil
Delivered at the Twenty First Annual Commencement of the
North Dakota Agricultural College
Fargo, North Dakota, June Sixth, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen
The Stewardship of the Soil
By J. H. WORST
Our ambitious young commonwealth, in conjunction with other statescomprising the great Northwest, occupies a commanding position in theindustrial and economic affairs of this nation.
Mines of gold and silver or forests primeval North Dakota does not have;but from the millions of fertile acres comprising our vast agriculturalempire, we may reap a golden harvest every year that will exceed inwealth the output of all the golden placers in the western mountains.
The harvest of minerals, however, can be gathered but once. Time willnot restore the precious nuggets.
The forests once harvested can, at great expense, be renewed in thecourse of a century; but our harvest of domestic plants and animalsrecurs with every passing season to recompense the farmer for his toiland to enrich the farmer's friends.
What a precious theme is harvest! The hopes, the well-being, the life ofthe world is fast bound up in the magic of this single word.
The soil upon which the harvest depends, moreover, is God's benedictionto humanity. Measured by consequences, Heaven has vouchsafed no form ofstewardship that is fraught with such tremendous responsibilities asthis stewardship of the soil. In the final analysis this stewardshiprepresents the farmer's obligation to society.
And yet sacred as is the soil and binding as is the farmer's obligationto society, the means for providing the world's food is nevertheless athis mercy.
It is a well-known fact that the soil can readily be depleted of itsfertility and thus robbed of its strength by a system of exploitation,commonly referred to as "extensive farming." Too much of our land isbeing thus exploited. On the other hand the productiveness of the soilmay be very greatly improved. Denmark, Belgium, Germany, and otherEuropean nations have fully demonstrated, that by the application ofscience to the art of agriculture, the productiveness of the soil can bemultiplied almost to the limit of necessity.
A Progressive Agriculture. Fortunately Nature has supplied every meansfor the development of a progressive and permanent agriculture. It isalso obvious that it is man's privilege, if not his mission, to improveupon Nature—to substitute quality for mere physical endurance, inagricultural products.
By the grace of Providence the individuals of the animal and vegetablekingd