SOIL 



of the soil. In a wild country, where there are 

 no men to interfere with the course of Nature, 

 all these substances return to the land in due 

 season in some form of decaying animal or 

 vegetable matter. In civilised countries, how- 

 ever, this natural process of giving back does not 

 happen, and each crop that is taken away leaves 

 the soil a little poorer than before. It is true 

 that any soil, however poor, always seems to be 

 able to grow something. The sorts of plants 

 we call weeds will often grow where useful 

 crops fail, but to keep our soil in good con- 

 dition, so as to get the best return from it, is 

 a matter that requires thought and care. 



Let us think for a moment of all the differ- 

 ent ways in which soil, or rather substances 

 formed out of soil, leave the land. There are 

 the vegetables, such as potatoes, cabbages, peas, 

 and many others ; there are a great many dif- 

 ferent sorts of fruit ; there is the hay and straw, 

 the wheat and oats, the barley and rye, the 

 turnips and mangolds. We must not forget 

 the grass eaten by the cows and sheep, part of 

 which is taken away from the land as milk and 

 butter, meat or wool. We now see how 

 necessary it must be to regularly put back into 

 the soil some of the things we take away from 

 it, and by constantly ploughing and cultivating it, 

 to encourage the moisture and warmth to enter 

 into it and still further break up the grains of rock. 



The work of putting substances back into 



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