CHAPTER I 



THE NORMAL SOIL AND ITS REQUIREMENTS 



3E aim of this chapter is to study the conditions 

 it which a healthy plant lives and grows. Such 

 pledge will prepare us to consider the causes or 

 Drs which are responsible for abnormalities and 

 ises. Plants are endowed with life, and to live 

 must have food. Part of the food is derived 

 l the air, but they cannot subsist on air alone, 

 sustenance of plants is also derived from the 



is to be regretted that laymen often regard the 

 as merely a conglomeration of inert particles of 

 1 rock. If this were true, plant life would be an 

 Dssibility. It is because soils are teeming with 

 dus forms of organisms beneficial to them that 

 .t life is made possible therein. The science of 



Bacteriology, though still in its infancy, has 

 idy taught us much to help make the trucking 

 ness much more profitable and successful than 

 is been hitherto. 



ideed we may judge a soil by the kind of flora 

 ^h predominates there, and call it fertile and 

 thy when this germ life helps to make it a favor- 



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