328 S9ILS 



Storing the Rain. Another benefit that humus 

 confers upon a soil is that of increasing its 

 power to hold moisture. A sand may contain 

 enough plant food for a crop, but the crop 

 will not grow because the sand cannot sup- 

 ply the plant with water it is too leachy. 

 Plants not only need water to drink, but 

 water is also needed to carry food that is 

 dissolved in it to the plants. Soils deficient 

 in humus dry out quickly in a time of drought. 

 ^There may be an abundance of plant food 

 in the soil, but it is useless for the time being 

 if there is not enough moisture to dissolve it and 

 carry it to the plant. Where do you find fish- 

 worms in a "dry spell?" I dig in the moist soil 

 beneath the chips of the old woodpile. Chips 

 have decayed there in the soil for years. It is full 

 of humus, and moisture, and worms. Is not the 

 soil blacker, richer, and more moist where the cur- 

 rant bushes have been mulched every year with 

 manure or straw ? So in the larger operations of 

 the farm, the addition of humus to a soil from 

 which it has been "burnt out" by years of clean 

 tillage has a marked effect in increasing the 

 power of that soil to hold moisture. 



Humus Enriches the Soil. When a plant decays 

 in the soil it returns to the soil practically all that 

 was taken from it. But there are additional bene- 

 fits. In the decay of the plant certain acids are 

 formed that help to dissolve some of the unavail- 

 able, or unpalatable, plant food in the soil. All 

 humus is a store of nitrogen; green-manuring is 

 the cheapest means of maintaining the supply of 

 this plant food. If the plate grown for green- 

 manuring are "legumes ' they are especially 

 valuable for adding nitrogen. 



