ORGANIC MATTER 37 
Because not sufficient organic matter is being added to 
the soil to keep up the necessary supply. 
The corn stalks were in the majority of cases burned 
and destroyed; the wheat stubble with its roots was in- 
significant. Both crops of clover were removed, leaving 
nothing but stubble and roots, which are insignificant. 
In all these years more organic matter was removed 
than added to the soil, and the supply of humus was 
gradually being exhausted. 
What about the fields that have been planted each 
year to corn for ten, fifteen, twenty and even seventy 
years, and stalks removed and burned each year? And 
what about the many fields rotated with corn, oats and 
wheat only, and the stalks and stubbles in most cases 
burned? 
Vegetable matter destroyed by burning resolves into 
air from go to 99 per cent. of its organic parts. 
If this be true, then the value of the ashes obtained 
from burning vegetation is too small to be considered. 
Standing in the receding twilight of an April even- 
ing, I have seen the entire visible horizon of the famous 
Wabash Valley aglow with the reflection from the fires 
of burning corn stalks, raked up into windrows, from 
thousands of acres of soil, that needed the humus, 
potash and nitrogen abounding in these stalks, but 
which was going up in smoke, to be lost forever to 
these acres of soil that are fast losing their fertility. 
As I looked upon this thoughtless and almost criminal 
destruction of soil fertility, I saw in my imagination 
pictured in the reflected light upon the sky, pictures of 
