200 An American Fruit-Farm 



as prairie or forest-clearing, river-bottom, or bed of 

 ancient lake, usually is seemingly rich in all three. 

 Ages of soil-chemistry — of disintegration of min- 

 eral and of decay of vegetable matter — have 

 stored up these foods. 



The land newly put to human use is a depositary 

 of pent-up energy, which, set free on demand of 

 seed or root dropped into the soil, is transformed 

 into wheat, com, oats, potatoes, roots, berries, 

 orchards, and vineyards. Every farmer knows the 

 superior crop- value of new land. He who has had 

 experience in clearing off timber, planting the 

 new land, the first year to potatoes, the second 

 year setting it to Concord grapes, will record an 

 extraordinary yield of potatoes, both as to quan- 

 tity and quality of fruit, and also a phenomenal 

 yield of grapes for several years. I have known a 

 production of nearly eight tons of grapes per acre 

 from such land for several years in succession. 

 This heavy production was the cream of the land ; 

 the skim-milk followed when the foods, stored up 

 for ages in that land, had been exhausted. Soil 

 in the wild is soon depleted, — ^reduced to lowest 

 terms of productivity by cropping. Cropping is 

 wanton consumption of plant-food without 

 resupply. Happily, on this new land, the 

 grower grew clover to plow in, and applied 

 phosphates and potash, thus warding off the 

 evil day of plant collapse. Cropping the land is 

 like drawing all your money from the bank and 

 winding up with an overdraft. If we will de- 



