30 ORGANIC MATTER 
tant part in preparing the soil, or putting it in the proper 
condition for plant growth. 
They are the little constant workers in Nature’s lab- 
oratory, that compound and distribute the substances 
needed for plant food. They cleanse the soil of its of- 
fensive accumulations and are one of the best aids to 
successful agriculture. 
It has been said that land without organic matter is 
but the skeleton of the soil, and that the organic matter 
makes the flesh. 
The system of farming in vogue in the United States 
for the past one hundred years has farmed out of the 
soils most all the organic matter originally in them. It 
has stripped the body of its flesh and nothing but the 
skeleton remains. 
For instance, the average farmer will one year plant a 
field in corn. The next season he will break, rake and 
burn every stalk and put it in corn again. In the fall 
he will sow wheat in the corn. The next season he will 
break the ground and put in wheat again; perhaps he 
will sow clover in the wheat in the spring. If the clover 
is a good stand, the next season he will remove from the 
field not only the first clover crop but also the seed crop, 
and the following spring break up for corn again, and 
continue on and on this same process. 
This is regarded good farming. They tell us it is 
crop rotation, and builds up our farms. Yet I say to 
you, that under this very system our farms have grown 
and are growing poorer every year. That the organic 
matter in the soil is becoming less and tess, and why? 
