Feeding the Land i8i 



I 



^^fwithin the laboratory of the soil. Heat and mois- 

 " ture are chief agents in this process. The sun really 

 does the business. As well feed ingots of steel to a 

 plant as an insoluble fertilizer. In perfectly cold, 

 dry earth the process of change into soluble form 

 is impossible. This explains the wonderful preser- 

 vation of innumerable articles in Egyptian tombs 

 for thousands of years, as honey, bread, seeds, 

 cloth, wood, and other articles commonly perish- 

 able. Dtiring the winter the fertilizer we have 

 I already placed in the earth is rapidly becoming 

 I soluble. The earth is not so cold nor so dry, 

 ordinarily, as to check this process. In coldest 

 I winter it is warmer than the air above; and in 

 fiercest drouth it is moister, — otherwise, plant life 

 as we know it could not exist on the earth. 



Evidently soil-making is a constant process, 

 though we are apt to think of it as going on only 

 while we are applying fertilizers to the ground. 

 The ignorant fruit-grower thinks of himself fertiliz- 

 ing the ground only while he is spreading some sort 

 of manure over it. Foolish man! The alchemy 

 of Nature never ceases. He may scatter a few 

 pounds of fertilizer in the spring but his orchard 



iwill feed, can feed, only on the food then available 

 in the soil and near the roots of the trees. Very 

 possibly this food has been a century becoming 

 soluble and this fertilizer he is now scattering may 

 not become available for many years. 



He may scatter a fertilizer, say nitrate of soda, 



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