EQUIPMENTS NECESSAEY 97 



To him who already owns his farm, no good 

 purpose can be subserved by entering into any 

 scientific discussion of the formation and com- 

 position of soils. All that he who is engaged in 

 the business of farming needs to know about the 

 foundation or composition of soils, is that one 

 class is composed of an abundance of small rock 

 particles in which are locked up the soil minerals 

 accompanied with little vegetable or organic mat- 

 ter, known as our sandy soils; another class has 

 an abundance of decomposed rocks containing 

 aluminous minerals, known as our clay soils, and 

 another has the abundance of vegetable or or- 

 ganic matter known as our muck soils. 



Air, sunlight and water, entering into and com- 

 ing in contact with these soils produce the con- 

 dition essential to plant growth. That some of 

 these soils do not produce an abundant crop 

 growth, is due to the lack of some essential plant 

 food element which must be supplied. 



If farmers would become Nature students and 

 would study her ways and her doings, they would 

 make a greater success of the business of farm- 

 ing, for if they would do this, they would learn 

 the simple lesson that when Nature fashioned the 

 soil she first took the rock particles of the soil, 

 started the vegetable growth into them, which not 

 only dissolved the mineral elements locked up 

 in the rock of the soil, but filled it with vegetable 

 and organic matter, all of which is the food upon 

 which plants feed, and are the means of letting 

 air into the soil that plants may perform the nec- 

 essary function of breathing. 



Plenty of air, moisture, sunlight, mineral and 



