ORGANIC MATTER 4l 
nature of organic matter is to bind the soil grains to- 
gether, absorb and hold large quantities of moisture, 
prevent the washing and blowing of the surface, besides 
furnishing the food for bacteria and depositing into 
the soil nitrogen and other needful soil elements. 
When we have well learned this lesson, then will our 
farms be freed from the curse of worn-out soils. 
Nature understood her business when she covered our 
lands with forests and the vast prairies with large grow- 
ing grasses, so that the decay of tree trunks, limbs, 
leaves and grasses would intermingle with the sand and 
the clay and thus produce the rich lands for the farmer, 
but the farmer has not learned the lesson that when he 
gets away from Nature’s ways of soil building he is 
heading towards the doom of soil exhaustion. 
We are so apt to do things as our fathers did, forget- 
ting that our fathers lived under different environments 
than we do. 
The pioneer farmer had the soil in its original fresh- 
ness and had no need of building it up. It was rich 
enough. The children were by this pioneer, who was 
not bound by any necessity of a change of farming 
methods, taught the simple lesson of farming just as 
he did. 
But when the land fell into the inheritance of the 
children’s children it had almost reached the point of 
soil exhaustion, and the children’s children being 
bound with the cords of environment, lacked sufficient 
will or mental power to break them, and kept on farm- 
ing as their fathers did, thus showing the great strength 
and influence of environment. 
