3o8 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



SOIL IMPROVEMENT. 



Prof. Franklin Menges, York, Pa. 



(Stenographic Report.) 



This is the most important subject before the American 

 people today. The subject is "Natural Methods of Soil Im- 

 provement," or "Nature's Methods." Those of you who have 

 been farming quite a while and have been observant, have no- 

 ticed that under certain conditions your land will improve natu- 

 rally, whereas, under other conditions, it will become poorer. 

 Now, then, in order that we may have an idea about these 

 things, we will have to go directly to Nature. We will liave 

 to go down to the soil and see how it was made and how it is 

 being made today. If our geological evolution fellows can be 

 trusted, there was a time when this old earth was nothing but 

 solid rock. I do not know whether that is so or not. I am 

 saying what some other fellow said. I have a sneaking sort 

 of a notion that we do not know. 



We notice in our state that on the solid rock, ana this is true 

 in Maine as well as in Pennsylvania, and all over the United 

 States (I have traveled over a good part of it), that on the solid 

 rock there are plant growths, the lowest visible form of plants 

 that we know anything about, the mosses, lichens and the algae. 

 What are they? Soil makers. If you examine the texture of 

 the rock, you will find that the roots of the plants have pene- 

 trated the crevices of the rock and taken from the rock the 

 material used for growth. They go on soil making. When 

 they have made a soil sufficiently rich another plant will come 

 along and grow on it. What is this other plant? It is the fern. 

 We have species of ferns that will grow well-nigh on the naked 

 rock, and spread from the base to the top of the solid moun- 

 tains. You have older mountains here, I think, than we — 

 they are not as high. We still have coal in our state, and lots 

 of it. I think you wish you had. 



