94 THE PEOPLE'S FARM AND STOCK CYCLOPEDIA. 



intelligence and enterprise of its inhabitants, but also to the fact 

 that within its limits was soil of unsurpassed fertility. 



Whenever the soil of a nation becomes so impoverished that 

 it is no longer able to furnish food in abundance, the prosperity 

 of that nation must vanish and its progress cease. There is, 

 therefore, no subject of more vital interest to humanity than the 

 methods by which the fertility of the soil can be maintained 

 and increased. There is no subject which, to the farmer, should 

 possess so deep an interest as the origin, character, and treat- 

 ment of his soil. He needs to know what it contains, what the 

 crop derives from it, how loss of fertility under continued crop- 

 ping may be avoided, and how its fertility, when once impaired 

 by bad management, can be restored. 



Origin of Soil. It is supposed that, when the earth was 

 first created and had cooled from its original condition of a mass 

 of fiery molten material, it was simply a great ball of rock. The 

 surface was seamed and scarred, and wrinkled with the strug- 

 gles it had passed through. Water covered the more depressed 

 portions of the surface, forming oceans, while great mountains 

 of barren rocks reared their heads far above the clouds. On 

 this rocky waste the sun poured its rays, and the rains descended 

 in torrents, wearing away the rock, grinding the fragments into 

 sand, which was strewn over the more level portions. 



Other influences worked upon the rock. The frosts of win- 

 ter, acting on the water that penetrated the cracks and fissures, 

 broke off fragments, that were ground to powder by other forces. 

 In presence of sun and water and air, chemical forces worked, 

 causing the rock to soften and melt away in the form of clay, 

 and the water took this and spread it and mixed it with the 

 sand. 



Thus a soil began to be formed of sand and clay, containing 

 many substances from the rock, but specially two that were to 

 be of great importance in the future history of the world, phos- 

 phoric acid and potash. Over all this waste floated the atmos- 

 phere, formed then, as now, chiefly of two gases, nitrogen and 

 oxygen. Through the upper regions of this atmosphere, at times, 

 roared great thunder-storms, more fierce and wild than those we 



