Produced by K. Nordquist, Greg Bergquist and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) STEWARDSHIP OF THE SOIL WORST _The_ STEWARDSHIP OF THE SOIL [Illustration] _Address by_ JOHN HENRY WORST _President of_ NORTH DAKOTA AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE _The Stewardship of the Soil_ BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS BY JOHN HENRY WORST PRESIDENT NORTH DAKOTA AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE [Illustration] _Delivered at the Twenty First Annual Commencement of the North Dakota Agricultural College Fargo, North Dakota, June Sixth, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen_ [Illustration: JOHN HENRY WORST] _The Stewardship of the Soil_ _By_ J. H. WORST Our ambitious young commonwealth, in conjunction with other states comprising the great Northwest, occupies a commanding position in the industrial 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 agricultural empire, we may reap a golden harvest every year that will exceed in wealth the output of all the golden placers in the western mountains. The harvest of minerals, however, can be gathered but once. Time will not restore the precious nuggets. The forests once harvested can, at great expense, be renewed in the course of a century; but our harvest of domestic plants and animals recurs with every passing season to recompense the farmer for his toil and to enrich the farmer's friends. What a precious theme is harvest! The hopes, the well-being, the life of the world is fast bound up in the magic of this single word. The soil upon which the harvest depends, moreover, is God's benediction to humanity. Measured by consequences, Heaven has vouchsafed no form of stewardship that is fraught with such tremendous responsibilities as this stewardship of the soil. In the final analysis this stewardship represents the farmer's obligation to society. And yet sacred as is the soil and binding as is the farmer's obligation to society, the means for providing the world's food is nevertheless at his mercy. It is a well-known fact that the soil can readily be depleted of its fertility and thus robbed of its strength by a system of exploitation, commonly referred to as "extensive farming." Too much of our land is being thus exploited. On the other hand the productiveness of the soil may be very greatly improved. Denmark, Belgium, Germany, and other European nations have fully demonstrated, that by the application of science to the art of agriculture, the productiveness of the soil can be multiplied almost to the limit of necessity.