The Mulch 323 



somewhat affected by each, and all more or 

 less successful in breaking down the mineral 

 material into stuff that plants can make their 

 ashes (skeletons) with : these factors, though 

 plainly demanding both air and moisture that 

 the good work may go on, are only too 

 frequently neglected in toto ; the meaning of 

 the battle, the armies, the weapons, and even 

 the results, are grievously ignored by the 

 average agriculturist. 



One half of the ^"800,000,000 lost yearly 

 through ignorance and carelessness in attend- 

 ing to crop roots would not only pay for all 

 the Government agricultural appropriations 

 and all the scientific instruction along all the 

 lines of theoretical and applied agronomy in 

 the whole world, but would keep for five years 

 a mulch expert in every farming district in 

 every country, and establish, on five-year 

 subsidies, 1,000 well-equipped institutions for 

 plant growth investigations. 



Until recent years the art of farming was 

 ahead of the science; the planter did "thus 

 and so " because certain methods were gener- 

 ally followed with good results. To-day the 

 science, though only glimpsing the new light 

 on the high points of modern agriculture's 

 broad domain, is soaring above and beyond 

 the mere art of plant production. To be sure, 

 in some branches of horticulture the art seems 

 more developed than the science ; but even 

 there the scientific foundation and framework 



