AGRICULTURE FOR BEGINNERS 



CHAPTER I 

 THE SOIL 



SECTION I ORIGIN OF THE SOIL 



The word soil occurs many times in this little book. 

 In its agricultural sense this word is used to describe the 

 thin layer of surface earth that, like some great blanket, 

 is tucked around the wrinkled and age-beaten form of our 

 globe. The harder and colder earth under this surface 

 layer is called the subsoil. It should be remembered, 

 however, that in waterless and sun-dried countries there 

 seems little difference between the soil and the subsoil. 



Plants, insects, birds, beasts, men, all alike are fed on 

 what grows in this thin layer of soil. If some wild flood 

 in sudden wrath could sweep into the ocean this earth- 

 wrapping soil, food would soon become as scarce as it was 

 in Samaria when mothers boiled and ate their sons. The 

 face of the earth as we now see it daintily robed in grass, 

 or uplifting waving acres of corn, or even naked, water- 

 scarred, and disfigured by man's neglect, is very different 

 from what it was in its earliest days. How was it then ? 

 How did the soil originate ? 



