1900. 
THIS RURAL NEW-YORKER 
797 
THE PROBLEM OF THE CHEAP LANDS. 
Importance of Humus. 
Part V. 
After having secured the aeration of 
our soils by drainage, and sweetened 
them with lime, the next step in their 
reclamation will be the restoration of 
humus, for in the soils under discus¬ 
sion the stock of humus is almost al¬ 
ways-low. Humus is the decaying or¬ 
ganic matter in our soils. It gives to 
them their rich dark look. It is one of 
the most important constituents of our 
soils. Most of the depleted lands of 
the East are suffering more for humus 
than for any of the so-called plant 
foods, .unless it be lime. In fact many 
of these soils contain plant food 
enough for hundreds of maximum 
crops, but it is unavailable, largely be¬ 
cause of the exhaustion of humus. Per¬ 
haps a better understanding of the part 
that humus plays in rendering available 
this inert plant food, will cause our 
fanners to exercise a little more care 
in its conservation. 
If we have been accustomed to think 
of our soils as so much dead inert mat¬ 
ter, we have been making a grave mis¬ 
take. If they are at all fertile, they 
are literally teeming with life. There 
is more life, by far, beneath our feet 
in the soil than above its surface. 
Many millions of micro-organisms 
have actually been counted in a thim¬ 
bleful of fertile soil. These are the 
very life of the soil. Without them it 
would be dead and unproductive. In¬ 
vestigations have clearly shown that 
the number of bacteria in a soil bears 
a direct ratio to its crop producing 
power. Poor 'soil has comparatively 
few bacteria. Rich soils have enor¬ 
mous numbers. This bacterial life is 
absolutely essential. Hilgard says 
“When the soil is sterilized, either by 
heat or antiseptic agents certain essen¬ 
tial processes are completely suppress¬ 
ed until the soil is reinfected and the 
conditions of bacterial life restored. 
If a soil be heated to a temperature 
sufficient to destroy its bacterial life, 
the growth of plants will be main¬ 
tained therein only up to the point of 
the exhaustion of its easily soluble and 
assimilable plant food, at the end of 
which time they will die of starvation.” 
Let us meditate upon these statements 
of eminent authorities upon this sub¬ 
ject until we get firm hold of the idea, 
that soil bacteria play a most, possibly 
the most, important part in making our 
soils productive. When rightly under¬ 
stood all farm operations are perform¬ 
ed to stimulate the growth and activity 
of these organisms. They cannot flour¬ 
ish in a water-logged soil; hence we 
drain. They cannot thrive in an acid 
medium, hence we 'sweeten the soil 
with lime. They must have an abund¬ 
ance of oxygen, so we loosen the soil 
by tillage to admit air. If our eyes 
were only sharp enough to see them, 
or our ears acute enough to hear them, 
if we could only in some way sense 
and become aware of their presence 
and of the mighty work they are do¬ 
ing for us, I am sure we would han¬ 
dle our soils, so as to increase more 
directly their numbers, and stimulate 
their activities. 
So much for the importance of bac¬ 
teria in our soils. Now for the rela¬ 
tion of humus to these organisms. Hu¬ 
mus is their food. All bacteria, as well 
as all fungi, must have organic matten 
to feed upon. Micro-organisms are 
the agents of decay. Without them 
there would be no decay of the plant 
or animal debris, that falls upon the 
surface of the earth. As soon as any 
of the material falls, it is their business 
to seize it, tear it down, rot it, mingle 
it with the soil and liberate the plant 
food it contains. And somehow in 
their life work they serve to make 
available the basic plant food of our 
soil. Miles says “In my own experi¬ 
ments with 'soil microbes, the glass 
tubes in which cultures were made 
have been deeply etched as a result of 
their activities, and they readily ob¬ 
tain their supplies of lime and potash 
from solid fragments of gypsum and 
feldspar.” Now if organic matter is 
the primary food of these organisms 
we would reason that one way to in¬ 
crease their number and vigor would 
be to increase their food supply. And 
this would be good reasoning. The 
Kansas Experiment Station recently 
found 53,596,066 bacteria in a cubic 
centimeter of soil containing 3.07 per 
cent of humus, while in a similar soil, 
but containing only 2.19 per cent of hu¬ 
mus, only 33,931,747 were found. Hil¬ 
gard says, “the very abundant develop¬ 
ment of bacterial life seems to be 
among the most important effects pro¬ 
duced by stable manure.” It is a temp¬ 
tation to develop the subject farther, 
but perhaps enough has been said. If 
bacteria are absolutely essential to a 
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fertile soil,” and if organic matter is 
necessary to their existence, then we 
are justified in saying that humus is 
vital to successful agriculture. 
Humus is the great nitrogen carry¬ 
ing medium in our soils, and the main 
source from which the nitrogen sup¬ 
ply of our plants is derived, so that 
soils abundantly stocked with humus 
usually have an adequate supply of that 
costly and vital element, although the 
physical condition of the soil may un- 
yler certain conditions he such that it is 
not readily available. 
Humus under ordinary conditions’ 
makes the soil loose, open and friable. 
The tilth so esteemed by the best far¬ 
mers is not possible without a good 
supply of it in the soil. The addition 
of humus makes soils loamy. Clays 
become clay loams and sands become 
sandy loams. Clays which have little 
or no humus are very wet and sticky 
in a wet time, and very dry and hard 
in a dry time. They are dead. There 
is neither pleasure nor profit in farm¬ 
ing such a soil. 
One of the most important func¬ 
tions of a soil is to retain moisturg. 
Not to hold liquid water as a vessel, 
but to absorb it and retain it as film 
water. The value of a soil will depend 
largely upon its ability to do this. 
Johnson quotes experiments by Schu- 
bler to show remarkable differences in 
■soils in this respect. In these ex¬ 
periments it was shown that quartz 
sand absorbed 25 per cent of its weight 
of liquid water; clay soil, 40 per cent; 
garden mould, 89 per cent; humus, 181 
per cent. These are remarkable figures 
and of the utmost importance for our 
consideration. Yet they tell only half 
the story. These saturated soils were 
•spread over a given surface for a given 
time, under exactly the same conditions, 
to see which would give up the absorb¬ 
ed water the most readily. The results 
follow. The sand lost 88.4 per cent of 
its absorbed water in the given time; 
the clay lost 52 per cent: garden mould, 
24.3 per cent; humus, 25.5 per cent. I 
know of no figures more worthy of 
careful consideration than these. They 
need no comment. f. l. allen. 
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