Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1915 — GREAT FARM MEETING TO BE HELD AT NEWLAND. [ARTICLE]

GREAT FARM MEETING TO BE HELD AT NEWLAND.

Noted Lecturer to Speak—Special Train From Rensselaer. Jasper county farmers have a great treat coming in the shape of a great soil institute to be held at Newland on Saturday, March 27. A special train will leave Rensselaer at 8:30 by way of McCoysburg and return at the close of the afternoon’s session. Two meetings will be held. The forenoon will convene at 10:30 and the afternoon meeting at 1:30. Professor Henry G. Bell of Chicago, who spoke at Newland last year, will deliver two lectures and give one illustrated talk. Between 400 and 500 people heard Professor Bell last year and this number should be considerably increased this year for the professor does far more than talk, as he brings to us at the close of a successful season of farmers’ institutes work in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, a traveling soil school with a full aquipment of expensive and original apparatus. His first talk is on “Principles Underlying Soil Fertility.” in this lecture he does not tell you how’ to test a soil for acidity; he makes the tests on the ground. He does not tell how water rises in soils; he carries apparatus whjch shows the water actually rising before your own eyes. He does not tell how humus helps to aerate soil and holds moisture but pours solutions of colored plantfood material through humus soils actually showing how they retain the plantfood material and how they

allow for the passage of air through soils. He does not talk in a far off way of soil bacteria but brings them along and shows them to you. The first half of the afternoon lecture is on the elements of plantfood. With him, Professor Bell carries all of the elements of plantfood. He shows potassium burning on water, also hydrogen burning. The lectures have many popular features but down beneath it all is a world of good hard practical wisdom that makes for bigger, better crops and greater profits. The second part of the lecture will be illustrated and treats of the manufacture and use of fertilizers, dealing especially with our local conditions.

Professor Bell is well equipped for this work. Before taking up his present work, Professor Bell was a member of the faculty of the lowa College of Agriculture and head of the farm crops department of the University of Maine. With him travels Mr. J. W. Henqeroth, a school teacher of long experience and an agricultural graduate. These men will be able to spend some time in personal consultation. xx