140 FOOD 



54. The Farm a Workshop. 



For a long time people thought of the farm as a place 

 where they could obtain something for almost nothing. 

 All that they had to do was to plant seeds and reap the 

 harvest. When it became necessary, however, to raise as 

 large crops as possible, on account of the increased num- 

 ber of persons who had to be fed, people found that they 

 must consider the farm as a workshop. Just as the ma- 

 terials are manufactured into the finished product in a 

 workshop, so on the farm the food for the plants is made 

 into vegetables and fruits. 



In a workshop the supply of material, which is to be 

 used to manufacture articles, must be kept in large quan- 

 tities and the factories cannot produce the articles unless 

 they have a proper supply of material. In the same way 

 every plant that grows and every fruit or vegetable which 

 is produced require a certain amount of plant-food. This 

 plant-food is taken from the ground never to return. 

 When all the plant-food has been removed by the grow- 

 ing plants, no more plants will grow in that soil. We 

 say then that the ground is sterile. If we wish to 

 change sterile land so that crops may be raised upon it, 

 we must put into the soil the materials which plants 

 require to make them live and grow. Such material is 

 called a fertilizer. 



A good farmer never allows his land to become 

 sterile, but each year he adds to the ground the right kind 

 of plant-food for the crop he wishes to raise. Now you 

 see why a farm should be considered as a workshop if 

 you want a good crop you must either have in the soil 

 those materials which the plants need or else you must 



