20 Practical Farming 



turned out as worthless. Then at once nature goes to 

 work to restore what man has wasted. The broomsedge 

 grass covers the old field, and the wind bears the Hght 

 seed of the old field pine, which starts and grows in the 

 sheltering grass. The pine sends a long tap root down 

 into the subsoil below where the little plow of the devas- 

 tator went, and year after year pumps up material for 

 growth and takes its great share, too, from the air. Year 

 after year it covers the land with its fallen leaves contain- 

 ing the matters it got from earth and air, and a forest 

 grows up without any help from man. Another man cuts 

 the forest down and utilizes the wood, and finds that he 

 has a piece of virgin soil instead of a worn-out one. 

 This is nature's process of soil-building, and it is the same 

 process that has been going on through all time in the 

 making of the fertile surface soil in which himius or 

 vegetable decay plays so important a part. 



We have seen that great accumulations 

 How Lime- that have been made on the surface of the 

 Clays ^ect ^^^^^» while largely of a mineral nature. 

 Fertility have been the result of the activity of animal 



life. Chalk is simply one form of what we 

 call limestone; and in all limestones, with the exception 

 of the older limestones, which have been crystallized by 

 heat, we find fossilized animal remains, showing how they 

 were made under either the salt or the fresh water. When 

 these limestones are elevated by the changes of the 

 earth's surface, vegetation starts on them rapidly; and 

 its decay increases what we term soil; and on these 

 limestone deposits we find much of the best type of 

 soils. 



