PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS 



AT THE SEMI-ANNUAL MEETING AT 



PRESGtUE ISLE, SEPT. 25tli-26th, 1878. 



♦ > ♦ » 



BEST METHODS OF RETAINING THE FERTILITY 

 OF THE VIRGIN SOIL. 



By Ch. F. Allen, D. D., President of State College. 



The fertility of the soil has always been a subject of intense 

 interest to man, from the time when sent forth to procure his 

 sustenance, it was announced to him, " cursed is the earth 

 for thy sake." The severe toil required to eradicate thorns 

 and thistles, to plant, till and carry home useful crops, is not 

 all that is demanded of the husbandman. Successive harvests 

 gathered from the same field are found soon to exhaust the 

 soil. The earth that for man's sin was once cursed by Divine 

 Providence, has again and again been cursed by man's im- 

 providence. Unless the materials taken from the soil are in 

 some way restored, the supply of plant food will soon be 

 exhausted, and barrenness and desolation will spread over 

 the once fertile plains. 



A difiference was soon perceived in the rate of deterioration 

 of difierent localities. Vallies constantly supplied with new 

 soil washed from the hills, are more slowly exhausted. Inter- 

 vales inundated by turbid rivers whose sediment is deposited 

 where the current is more sluggish, are kept in perpetual 

 fertility. These low banks annually receiving fresh deposits, 

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