IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. 79 



pounds of which they are composed will separate, and 

 form new combinations with the elements already in 

 the soil, the air, or the rain. There will be new com- 

 binations in every direction, and nothing will remain 

 that bears any resemblance to the original plants. 

 Some of the elements of the plants will float away as 

 invisible gases on the air, or sink deep into the soil 

 with the water that falls in the next rain. Not a thing 

 will utterly perish, not an atom will be lost. The 

 greedy soil will take up all that is not carried away 

 by the air or the water, and will hold it fast till other 

 plants seeking for food find it and use it once more as 

 part of a living thing. All this happens whenever any 

 living thing dies. If it is left on the ground, the larger 

 part floats away on the air unseen. Another part soaks 

 away into the soil in the ground. If it is buried under 

 the soil, the most valuable parts unite with the ele- 

 ments in the soil, and make new combinations ready 

 for future plants ; and the rest escapes in the air and 

 water. Disagreeable, do you think? Not at all. 

 This is nature's sweet, sure way of restoring every 

 living thing to its native elements in the soil and air 

 from whence it sprang. Thus we see that the first 

 step in improving the soil is to return to it the wild 

 plants that occupy the virgin ground, that in dying 

 they may make room for better plants, the potato, 

 the yellow corn, and sweet grasses, fit food for men 

 and animals, and that they leave their remains to 

 become food for the plants that come after them. We 

 see now that the soil is not merely a storehouse of 



