SOIL SANITATION 285 



Even in forests Nature rotates her crops. 

 Pine and oak alternate, as every woodsman 

 knows. 



If Nature had no other means than crude 

 rotation the soil would soon cease producing 

 vegetation. In fact, it would never arrive at 

 the point of selecting its own cycle of rotation. 



But Nature has another means. She feeds 

 her soil. She does not feed it with "plant 

 food," as expressed in pounds of minerals, 

 but she stuffs it with dead fiber, which, in the 

 process of decay, exercises the same influences, 

 though in a less active form, as barn-yard 

 manure or green crops plowed under. In the 

 process of decay the oxidizing and nitrifying 

 substances are set to work, "cleansing" the soil 

 of the toxic compounds formed during the 

 process of growth. 



The prairie soil is "loam" not because of the 

 fine mineral particles it contains, but because 

 of the content of decaying organic substances. 

 The best practice of farming teaches that the 

 soils should be kept stuffed with decaying 

 vegetation in one form or another. The 

 prairies, over the ages of their wild existence, 

 were able to store up a tremendous reserve 

 of these sanitary agencies. So great was this 



