If we retain the straw on the farm and sell only the grain, the supply of potassium in the surface soil of Poorland Farm is sufficient to meet the needs of a fifty bushel crop of wheat per acre every year for nineteen hundred and twenty years, or longer than the time that has passed since the Master walked among men on the earth; whereas, the total phosphorus content of the same soil is sufficient for only seventy such crops, or for as long as the full life of one man.  Keep in mind that Poorland Farm is near Heart-of-Egypt, and that this is the common soil of our “Egyptian Empire,” which contains more cultivable land than all New England, has the climate of Virginia, and a network of railroads scarcely equalled in any other section of this country, and in addition it is more than half surrounded by great navigable rivers.

On Poorland Farm there are seven forty-acre fields which are at least as nearly level as they ought to be to permit good surface drainage, and there is no need that a single hill of corn should be omitted on any one of these seven fields; and I am confident that with an adequate supply of raw phosphate rock and magnesian limestone and a liberal use of legume crops this land can be made to pay interest on $300 an acre.

Why not?  At Rothamsted, England, they have averaged thirty-eight and four-tenths bushels of wheat per acre during the last twenty years in an experiment extending over sixty years, and they have done this without a forkful of manure or a pound of purchased nitrogen.  Why not?  The wheat alone from eighty acres of land, if it yielded forty bushels per acre and sold at $1 a bushel, would pay nearly five per cent. interest on $300 an acre for the entire two hundred and forty acres used in my suggested rotation.

Aye, but there is one other very essential requirement:  To wit, a world of work.

Hoping to hear from you, and especially about your alfalfa, I am,

Very sincerely yours,

PERCY JOHNSTON.

CHAPTER XXXV

SEALED LIPS

No one realized more than Percy Johnston that toleration of life itself was possible to him only because of the world of work that he found always at hand in connection with his abiding faith and interest in the upbuilding of Poorland Farm.  He had accepted Adelaide’s sweet smile and lack of apparent disapproval with confidence that he might at least have an opportunity to try to win her love.  As he was permitted at the parting to look for more than an instant into those alluring eyes, he felt so sure that they expressed something more than friendship or gratitude for him.  He had felt the more confidence because he thought he knew that she would not permit him to humiliate himself by asking and failing to receive from her father permission to write to her, when she could easily in her own womanly way have discouraged such a thought at once.  Had she not insisted upon driving slowly back to the turn in the road, and did he not feel the absence of a previous reserve?