24 PROFITABLE STOCK RAISING 



This decay forms certain acids, and causes certain 

 chemical reactions which serve to render available 

 to the use of the plant roots, plant food already 

 present. Its mechanical action, by adding bulk to 

 the soil, keeps the fine soil particles from running 

 together into a close compact mass when wet, pro- 

 vides air and water spaces, and enables the farmer 

 to keep the soil in a condition of good tilth. 



SYSTEMS OF SOIL MANAGEMENT 



A system of soil management which seems to 

 make for a permanent agriculture has been widely 

 exploited in recent years by means of which grain 

 farming alone can be continuously followed. This 

 system demands the growth of leguminous crops 

 and the plowing under of large quantities of legu- 

 minous vegetation in order to supply the nitrogen 

 and the necessary humus, while the application of 

 ground phosphate rock, steamed ground bone or 

 phosphorus in some of its various available forms 

 are depended upon to supply the phosphorous con- 

 tent. Lime can be added as needed to correct the acid 

 condition of the soil and maximum crops of grain 

 and hay can be produced apparently indefinitely. 

 This plan has its adherents, and where it is clearly 

 an advantage to pursue this type of farming the 

 plan cannot be intelligently criticized. The other 

 system of soil maintenance demands the keeping of 

 live stock to the extent of the farm's capacity, the 

 marketing, through the medium of fattened stock, of 

 most of the grain and hay grown upon the land and 

 the return to the soil of all the manure made by the 

 live stock. 



At all periods of agricultural history, no matter 

 what new theories or fads have been advanced or 



