43 SOIL 
FERTILITY 
upon it, thus providing humus; and also by the 
action of heat and cold. Some of this land, 
overgrown with briers and brush, has been 
cleared and found to be better and stronger 
than ever before. Much of the soil is sour, but 
that is easily remedied, and wherever a patch is 
burned over, the grass works in well. On some 
of these abandoned farms there is an excellent 
opportunity to combine intensive culture on the 
lowlands with orcharding on the hills, for the 
fertility is still there. If man could destroy 
this quality, that clings to all soil, he would have 
spoiled it centuries ago, and the race would have 
starved. But we are a long time learning how 
best to use it. 
Robert S. Seeds, of Birmingham, Pa., thinks 
he has solved the secret of unlocking that soil 
fertility, and he offers the astounding results 
of his operations on an abandoned farm, as proof 
of his claims. He not only raises enormous 
crops, but he sells his soil by the bushel, to his 
less enlightened neighbors to inoculate their 
farms. He tells the story of his experiments in 
a lecture called “How God made the Soil Fer- 
tile,” which is published in pamphlet form and 
sells for 25 cents. 
He says “The Lord made all the acres of 
the land fertile, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
