THE EARTH'S BOUNTY 



inches of cultivated soil had, for seasons, been 

 alternately a mud puddle or slab either con- 

 dition fatal to growing crops. By using a 

 subsoil plow the obstruction was removed; 

 truly there was the danger of bringing 

 soil long bereft of ventilation, which would 

 almost surely be sour and poisonous, into im- 

 mediate contact with root growth. But turn- 

 ing the furrows at an abrupt angle, and leav- 

 ing the soil so exposed through the winter, 

 allowed frost, snow and air to assist the lime 

 in its work of purification. Moreover, the 

 soil, being corrugated, dried much earlier in 

 the spring. 



Sandy, shaley soil is, rightly speaking, coarse 

 earth, through which moisture escapes so rap- 

 idly that all sustaining qualities are washed 

 away. A plow pan, under such conditions, acts 

 like the fine sand, or lower layer, in a filter. 

 The animalculse and ammonia, with which all 

 rain is charged, is retarded in passing through, 

 and calls into active existence what plant food 

 the soil possesses, but the moisture has free way 



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