CHAPTER II. 
THE SOIL. 
F this book is to be of real service, we must 
be clear about the terms and expressions, so 
that, though you may know nothing about 
gardening when you begin to read it, you may 
know enough to earn a living from the soil 
when you finish it—and practice a little. 
Many talk glibly enough about the soil, 
though few could tell exactly what it means. 
But market-gardeners must understand it, if 
they are to live by it. So it will be well to begin 
with the soil itself. Soil is that thin layer of 
earth that covers our globe like a _ blanket, 
and in which all that plants, beasts and men 
live upon, grows. If it were washed off, starva- 
tion would follow. The scientific explanation 
of the origin of this blanket, is, that it was 
formed by the action of heat, cold, water, 
frost, ice, low forms of vegetable life and tiny 
animals; sometimes working singly and some- 
times all together. It is now established 
that the most of the face of the earth was once 
rock which was rubbed, crushed and ground by 
these forces until this surface layer was made. 
Then higher forms of life became possible. 
Not centuries only, but aeons of time, were 
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