"But did you say that you paid fifty cents an acre in taxes?" asked Mr. Jones. "Yes, about that, in the corn belt," replied Percy, "but not so much in Southern Illinois where the land is poor. I think the farmers in that section pay taxes as low as yours. Perhaps twenty cents an acre." "Do you mean to say that you have poor land in Illinois?" "Yes, the common prairie land of Southern Illinois must be called poor as compared with the corn belt land. There is a good deal of land in Southern Illinois that was put under cultivation before 1820, and eighty crops must have made a heavy draft upon the store of plant food originally contained in those soils." "Only since 1820? Why, we began to till the soil right here, Young Man, in St. Mary County, in 1634 and don't you know, Sir, that we had a rebellion here as early as 1645? Yes, Sir, that was one hundred and seventy-five years before 1820. So you've raised only eighty crops and the land is already getting poor, and we've raised two hundred and fifty crops--well, maybe, not quite so many, for we've been giving our land a good deal of rest for the last fifty or sixty years; but my grandfather used to raise twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre with the help of a hundred pounds of land-plaster, and I've no doubt I could do it again today if I cared to raise wheat, but one acre of tobacco is worth ten of wheat, so why should I bother with wheat?" "Twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre," repeated Percy, half to himself. "The total supply of phosphorus still remaining in the plowed soil would be sufficient for only twenty more crops like that. Two hundred years of such crops would require 1600 pounds of phosphorus, making nearly 1800 pounds at the beginning, if it all came from the plowed soil. That is one and a half times as much as is now contained in our common corn belt prairie land." "More stuff in our land than in yours, did you say?" questioned the old man. "I told you we had pretty good soil here, but I've always allowed your soil was better, but maybe not. I tell you manure lasts on this land. You can see where you put it for nigh twenty years. Then we rest our land some and that helps a sight, and if the price stays up we make good money on tobacco. I'm sorry your land is getting so poor out West, especially if you can't raise tobacco. Ever tried tobacco, Young Man?--gosh, but you remind me of one of them Government fellows who came driving along here once when Bob and his brothers were plowing corn right here about three years ago. Bob's my tenant's nigger, and he ain't no fool either, even if he is colored; but then, to tell the truth, he ain't much colored. Well, I was sitting under a tree right here smoking and keeping an eye on the niggers unbeknownst to them when one of them Government fellows stopped his horse as Bob was turning the end, and says he to Bob: "'Your corn seems to be looking mighty yellow?' "'Yes, suh,' says Bob. 'Yes, suh, we done planted yellow corn.'