How the Legumes Aid Us 271 



up and wasted the humus, and the soil is literally dead, 

 because the bacterial life that abounds in humus has been 

 starved out. The soil bakes after a rain and renders the 

 germination of seed difficult. It dries out rapidly and 

 gets so dry in long spells of drought that the plant food in 

 the soil cannot be dissolved and the crops are starved. 



When the land was newly cleared from the forest, there 

 was none of these things to perplex the cultivator. It was 

 full of the dark vegetable decay, was mellow to cultivate, 

 did not bake nor wash, and retained the moisture during 

 dry spells. But with the wearing out of this dark vege- 

 table decay by constant clean cultivation, all these diffi- 

 culties come in and in any system of improvement we must 

 make an effort to get back to the former new-ground 

 conditions. 



For this purpose the legumes are the most efficient aid 

 we can have. It would be easy to keep up these conditions 

 if all farmers had an abundance of barnyard and stable 

 manure for their hoed crops annually, for aside from their 

 fertilizing value the droppings of our domestic animals 

 are always associated with a large amount of vegetable 

 matter used in the bedding, which is good humus-making 

 material. 



But few farmers have enough of this, and here the 

 legumes, aided by apphcations of phosphoric acid and 

 potash, come in as a cheap substitute for the vegetable 

 matter in the manure. Not that we would under all 

 conditions advise the use of the whole legume crops as 

 manure for we have more than once said that it is not 

 good farm economy to bury a valuable food crop in the 

 soil, but that it should be used to increase the amount of 



