127 



INTRODUCTOKY. 



The improvement of the soil should be one of the 

 chief aims of every farmer. Every increase in pro- 

 ductiveness brings an even more marked increase in 

 profits. Given rich soil, and almost any crop will pay if 

 adapted to the local conditions and markets. Labor 

 spent in the cultivation of corn or cotton on extremely 

 poor soil usually earns scant reward or none. 



Fortunately much of the poorest Avorn land can be 

 brought to a fair degree of productiveness. The means 

 of soil improvement are various. Most thoroughly 

 tested by long experience in Europe and America is 

 that system of faiTQing which depends for soil enrich- 

 ment on the manure from a large number of livestock 

 maintained on the farm, partly for immediate profit, 

 but largely for use as manufacturers of fertilizers. This 

 system should be much more generally followed in Ala- 

 bama. However, its introduction will be gradual be- 

 cause of limited capital, inexperience, and the small 

 number and poor quality of the native livestock that 

 must serve as a foundation for stock raising. 



Meantime the most immediately available method of 

 increasino- the fertilitv of the soils of the South consists 

 in the free use of that class of leguminous plants, or 

 legumes, which embraces cowpeas, velvet beans, soy 

 beans, beggar weed, peanuts, hairy vetch, crimson clover, 

 and numerous others. 



When these plants are grown under suitable condi- 

 tions specific enlargements occur on their roots and these 

 are called root tubercles, or root nodules. The micro- 

 scopic organisms which live within these tubercles are 

 able to assimilate the nitrogen of the air that circu- 

 lates through the upper layers of the soil. This nitrogen 

 while a part of the air was useless to plant life, but 



