November, 1906 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



299 



an open fireplace 

 furnished with 

 large dull green tile. 

 The dining-room 

 has a paneled wain- 

 s c o t i n g, and a 

 porch, which is in- 

 closed with glass in 

 winter and used for 

 a sun-room. The 

 kitchen and its de- 

 pendencies are fitted 

 with all modern 

 conveniences. The 

 second floor, 

 trimmed with white 

 pine, is finished with 

 an egg-shell gloss. 

 This floor contains 

 four bedrooms and 

 a bathroom, the lat- 

 ter wainscoted and 

 furnished with 

 porcelain fixtures 

 and exposed nickel- 

 plated plumbing. 

 The third floor con- 

 tains the servants' rooms and ample storage space. A 

 cemented cellar contains a laundry, furnace- and fuel-rooms. 

 The Read Company, of Hackensack, N. J., were the archi- 

 tects. Houses of the character presented in this series very 



JTrst Story Ran- 



The Plans Show Four Rooms on the 

 The First Story is 



ably demonstrate 

 what can be done 

 with a little study 

 of the conditions 

 surrounding the 

 site, and a little 

 taste on the part of 

 the owner and the 

 architect to con- 

 form to these con- 

 ditions in the de- 

 signing of their re- 

 spective houses. 



Not that it is an 

 easy thing to design 

 and build such 

 houses as these, or 

 that simple houses 

 of any kind are nec- 

 essarily inexpensive. 

 Even the smallest of 

 building operations 

 calls for care and 

 thought, for skill 

 and cost. These are 

 the real matters that 

 count in house build- 

 ing. It is indisputably true that cheap houses are sometimes 

 costly in taste, poor in appearance and badly built, but care 

 and thought will do wonders, and if these qualities are drawn 

 on much may be accomplished. 



io 3t 



■ I-Ya> 



First Floor and Four on the Second Floor 

 Trimmed with Oak 



Soils and Their Nutrition 



N order to understand the methods neces- 

 sary for restoring worn-out soils, Mr. W. 

 J. Spillman, of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, has recently published in one of the 

 department's bulletins the principles which 

 underlie the renovation of exhausted soils. 

 In order to consider what occurs in a fertile soil that is grow- 

 ing a large crop he asks us to imagine a cubic inch of ordin- 

 ary field soil magnified into a cubic mile. It would then pre- 

 sent very much the appearance of a mass of rocks varying 

 from the size of a pea to masses several feet in diameter. 

 Scattered among these rock masses would be many pieces of 

 decaying plant roots and other organic matter, resembling 

 rotting logs in a mass of stones and gravel. The masses of 

 organic matter would be found to contain large quantities of 

 water and somewhat to resemble wet sponges, while every 

 mass of rock would have a layer of water covering its sur- 

 face. The open spaces between the solid masses would be 

 filled with air. 



If a crop were growing on this soil, its roots would be 

 found threading their way among the masses of rock and 

 decaying roots, and pushing these aside by the pressure ex- 

 erted by the growing root. From the surface of the grow- 

 ing root, near its tip, small hollow threads (the root hairs) 

 extend into the open spaces and suck up the water covering 

 the rock particles. The root hairs are not open at the end; 

 they absorb the water through their walls. The plant food 

 is dissolved in this water, but is usually present in exceed- 

 ingly small quantities. While the plant is growing a con- 

 stant stream of water flows up through it and evaporates at 

 its leaves. For every pound of growth in dry matter made 

 by the plant, from 300 to 800 pounds of water flow up 

 through it. 



The plant food substances dissolved in the soil water may 

 be divided into two classes according to their ultimate source 

 — mineral and nitrogen compounds. The mineral plant 

 foods are phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodi- 

 um, iron, silicon, chlorin, and sulphur. The amount of plant 

 food made ready for plant use during each growing season 

 through the slow solution of the mineral particles of the 

 soil is doubtless supplemented to a considerable degree by 

 the same kinds of material set free from the organic matter 

 also found in the soil — that is, the mineral matter originally 

 secured from the dissolved minerals, but built into plants dur- 

 ing some former season, may again be used by other plants 

 when the old matter is given an opportunity to decay in the 

 soil. These foods derived directly from the mineral matter 

 of the soil and indirectly from it through the growth, death, 

 and return of former crops are also supplemented in many 

 cases by the application of mineral matter in the form of 

 commercial fertilizers. 



In addition to the nine elements already mentioned, the 

 growing plant requires four other elements, as follows : Hy- 

 drogen, which it secures from water (water is a compound 

 of hydrogen and oxygen) ; oxygen, which it secures partly 

 from water and partly from the air; carbon, which is se- 

 cured from carbonic-acid gas in the air; and nitrogen. 



Nitrogen is in many respects the most important of all 

 the plant-food elements. It is not found in appreciable 

 quantities in the rock particles of the soil. Ordinary plants 

 depend for their nitrogen entirely on decaying organic mat- 

 ter. As decay proceeds nitrates are formed from the nitro- 

 gen contained in organic matter. The nitrates are exceed- 

 ingly soluble, and unless soon made use of by growing crops 

 they are washed out of the soil. Nitrogen is therefore us- 

 ually the first element to become exhausted in the soil. 



