THE SOIL 87 



One more discovery, and we have finished. Between these 

 soil particles in our handful of dirt, each one coated with 

 water, there must be air. That is the last thing we shall 

 now look for in our handful of dirt. It is true that the 

 chemist and the man with the microscope have more to say, 

 but for the present we have gone far enough in our examina- 

 tion of the soil. 



The soil or loam in our gardens, which is made of sand, 

 silt, clay, and humus, was mixed by nature through hundreds 

 of years. We ourselves can mix soils for our owri purposes. 

 We can take sand (coarse or fine), ordinary loam, mold from 

 rotted leaves or sod or manure, and by mixing them can pro- 

 duce soils that are more or less rich, or more or less loose, 

 according to the needs of the seeds or plants which we 

 mean to grow in them. 



And upon some mixture of the kind, with water and air, 

 depends every living creature in the world. The savage 

 may feast on the lion that preys on the antelope, but the 

 antelope lives on grass. Take away the grass, and you take 

 away also the antelope and the lion and the savage. Even 

 civilized man, with all his cleverness, would surely starve 

 to death if vegetable life had no soil to flourish in. 



REVIEW QUESTIONS 



1. How is soil made? What is loam? Subsoil? 



2. How can you test any loam ? What parts can it be separated 

 into? 



3. What are the three chief kinds of loam ? To which does the 

 loam in your garden belong ? 



4. What is humus ? 



5. Explain the making of a loam for indoor work. 



6. Could we live without soil ? Why ? 



