THE SOIL 43 



up its plant food as rapidly as we needed it for crops, but was still in condi- 

 tion to gradually give it up to the slower demands of the forest. The fact 

 is, that no land, originally fertile, and of good mechanical composition, is 

 ever worn out. It may be brought into a very unproductive condition, and 

 its mechanical condition be made unfavorable to the production of crops, but 

 it will still have the matters in it that can be made available. By proper 

 tillage and the use of restorative crops, such soils can be restored to their 

 original productiveness through their own resources. The process of restor- 

 ing such soils in this way would be too slow for our modern ideas, and hence 

 the soluble matters used in a concentrated form as fertilizers have their 

 legitimate use in the upbuilding of the modern farm. 



In many cases the soil has simply been robbed of the humus or vegetable 

 decay, and is still as rich in mineral plant food as ever, but its mechanical 

 condition is such that plants cannot thrive in it as they did. 



The soil runs together and bakes hard after rains, and the cost of tillage 

 is greatly increased, while the productiveness of the land has decreased. It 

 simply needs a restoration of the black humus that made it mellow and re- 

 tentive of moisture, and rendered the plant food in it more available. 



There are many soils called worn out which never had much to wear out. 

 A little accumulation of vegetable matter on top of a deep sand was soon used 

 up, and a blowing sand is the result. Such soils had far better be left to 

 pine and scrub oak. 



Thousands of American farmers find themselves confronted by the prob- 

 lem of "worn out" lands, and how to restore them to productiveness, and it is 

 with the hope of aiding them in the solution of the problem in an economical 

 manner that this book has been written. 



LIVING SOILS AND DEAD SOILS. 



There are in many sections of the country, large areas of land originally 

 fertile and productive, which would have remained permanently productive, 

 had they been properly managed. Their condition is due largely to the fact 

 that life ha& abandoned them, because the low forms of plant life that carry 

 on the changes in the soil and make plant food available, have been starved 

 out, and no addition simply of concentrated plant foods will take the place of 

 the foods on which the bacteria of nitrification exist. When these lands were 

 cleared from the forest, or broken from the prairie sod, they were full of the 

 black decay of organic matter. They were retentive of moisture and gave up 

 their plant food to the cultivator in abundant crops. Year after year the 

 process was repeated and the soil robbed. No steps were taken to keep up 



