PUTTING THE SOIL IN CONDITION 115 



After all that can be said "soil doctoring" is 

 but the application of simple common sense. We 

 must use our "thinkers" and faculties of observa- 

 tion. When we do this we will catch on to Na- 

 ture 's ways of soil building and soil restoration, 

 and, imitating her, we will not only maintain soil 

 fertility, but will restore our bleak, barren soils, 

 made so by sordid tillage. Acting then along this 

 line, he who runs must read in Nature's Book the 

 living truth that when Nature built the original 

 soil she used a lavish supply of organic matter 

 in its construction. She took the rock particles 

 of the soil which contained the mineral elements 

 of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, 

 iron, etc., and by the growth of certain plants, 

 grasses and trees in the soil, she put these mineral 

 elements to work, and they became mixed with the 

 roots, bodies, limbs, leaves and stems of these 

 plants, grasses, and trees, which form the or- 

 ganic matter of the soil, which held moisture and 

 gave the soil its necessary ventilation. Then Na- 

 ture created the soil bacteria, the mighty little 

 chemical workers of the soil, who, attacking this 

 organic matter, broke It down and in their labora- 

 tories worked it up into not only plant food, but 

 into the humus of the soil which acts as a water 

 reservoir for plants, improves the physical 

 condition of the soil and regulates soil tempera- 

 ture. 



Nature's processes of soil building are so sim- 

 ple and yet complicated in this, that while we can 

 not fathom the mystery of plant growth by which 

 two plants growing side by side in the same char- 

 acter of soil, kissed by the same sunshine and 



