American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS , 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man.”— Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Established 1842 
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Volume 113 For the Week Ending January 19, 1924 Number 3 
The Story of the Soil 
An A. A. Wednesday Evening Radio Talk Broadcast From WEAF 
S OIL and climate have had much to do with 
the migration and distribution of plants and 
animals. In the twilight days of man’s his¬ 
tory, as at present, grasses and other forage 
plants competed with forest trees for the posses¬ 
sion of the land. In this struggle the soil has 
played a leading part. Sandy beaches, stony 
hillsides, high mountain plateaus, limestone val¬ 
leys, bogs and peat lands each offered peculiar 
advantages to one or another type of vegetation. 
Thus there came into being different plant zones, 
including the sedges and cattails of the marshes; 
the stunted grasses, pines and holly of the sand 
dime and beach; the towering oaks, 
chestnuts, maples and other hard¬ 
wood of the heavier clay and loam 
soils; and the pines, spruces and firs 
of the drier and more open soils. 
Temperature and rainfall together 
with soil factors, as with a giant hand, 
held back or pushed ahead the belts of 
timber as the trees covered the valley 
floors and crept up the mountainsides. 
Hardwoods were followed by soft¬ 
woods in the forbidding environment 
of the higher altitudes. At the still 
higher levels only grasses and mosses 
could maintain themselves. 
With the distribution of vegetation 
came the distribution of animals and 
of man. The primitive hunter sought 
his prey in jungle and forest and on 
the far horizons of the natural grazing 
lands. Domesticated animals ap¬ 
peared in time, and the hunter be¬ 
came also a shepherd. Wandering 
tribes established more or less perma¬ 
nent homes and began to till the soil. 
An almost endless procession of cen¬ 
turies brought to man enough experi¬ 
ence and skill to anchor him to the 
land and to create for him new prob¬ 
lems. The early days of farming had 
their soil problems, to be sure. But as 
time went on these problems seemed 
to multiply. Something happened to 
the land, something that robbed it of 
its virgin strength, something that stunted the 
crops and the animals as well. The farmer moved 
on to land still rich and fruitful. Years later he 
moved on again and again as his food supply 
became scant. And as he moved on his fields 
reverted to their old state, the forest crowded the 
clearings, the crude dwellings vanished in the 
wilderness. 
In a sense the early farmer, like the shepherd, 
was a wanderer. Instead of pitching his tent for 
a day or a week he stayed on for a decade, a gen¬ 
eration, or even for several generations. But 
sooner or later he found himself compelled to move 
on in search of the promised land. It was only in 
a few favored spots that agriculture assumed a 
more permanent character, at least when meas¬ 
ured in terms of centuries. In the Valley of the 
Nile, in Asia Minor, in Southern China, in India, 
in western South America and elsewhere definite 
types of civilization grew up and flourished for 
long periods of time. All of these were located in 
arid regions where irrigation water was abundant 
but where rainfall was too slight to leach the soil 
By Dr. J. G. LIPMAN 
Director, New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station 
year after year, to rob it of a portion of its soluble 
salts and to increase thereby the toll of plant food 
levied by the farmer. In humid climates it is 
otherwise. Here constant leaching and washing 
continued over great stretches of time are bound 
to make serious inroads into the plant-food stores 
of the soil and to shorten its term of service. It 
is only with the aid of science and its recent revela¬ 
tions that we can counteract these destructive 
effects in such manner as to conserve the fertility 
of the soil and, indeed,, to give it a greater strength 
than it had in virgin state. 
The waning fertility of the land drove individu¬ 
als and masses of men from place to place. They 
coveted the more fertile land of their neighbors, 
they made war on them, they met victory and 
defeat, they built and destroyed cities and empires, 
and always they moved on in search of land flow¬ 
ing with milk and honey. Often it was hunger that 
spurred them on, often greed, soil and land greed. 
The human tide rose and fell as the waves of mi¬ 
gration, like ripples on a pond, spread outward 
from one or more common centers. It is an old 
story and a long story, much of it shrouded in 
mystery, a serial story as it were, with many in¬ 
stallments still to come. All about us it is being 
told, this story of the soil. We see the ebb and 
flow of city and country, striking changes in 
industry and commerce, national jealousies and 
hatreds, political alignments, armed conflicts for 
a place in the sun. Much of this is traceable to 
the striving for a full stomach, for the soil and its 
fruits. It may be that some wise and patient man 
will write for us, some day, the story of the soil in 
terms of human'history, of armies and dynasties, 
of social and political upheavals, of religious move¬ 
ments, and of the rise and fall of empires. But 
this is not the time or place for that story even if 
it were ready to be told. 
One part of the story, however, every thinking 
person should consider. There is still much elbow 
room in the United States. When our soil re¬ 
sources are fully developed we shall have abundant 
food and timber for a population of 500 million 
people. Our population may never grow to be as 
large. Some careful students believe that it will 
become stabilized at less than 200 mil¬ 
lions by the end of the present century. 
But whatever the ultimate size of our 
population we have nearly come to 
the parting of the ways as to our land 
policy. If ours is the path of wisdom 
we shall think of the land as the great¬ 
est of our national assets. We shall 
then formulate a national land and 
soils policy in the certain knowledge 
that too much land improperly farmed 
is a menace to rural and national pros¬ 
perity. We shall discourage, then, 
the vain search for more productive 
land beyond the horizon. 
We have now too much land under 
the plow. We are drawing on too 
large an area for the supply of fruits 
and vegetables for our city popula¬ 
tions. Transportation and distribu¬ 
tion become thereby unduly expen¬ 
sive. We till land that under present 
economic conditions should be re¬ 
served for the range and pasture. 
Several acres of land are too often 
made to do the work that one or two 
acres would do just as well, and more 
cheaply. In a word, we need less and 
better land. And here is where the 
story of the soil, as we read it care¬ 
fully, will bring to us light and guid¬ 
ance. We shall think of the soil, then, 
not as a mantle of clay or sand hiding 
the rock skeleton of the earth’s sur¬ 
face, but as a vast storehouse of ingredients 
out of which plants are made, as a busy labora¬ 
tory where countless numbers of bacteria, 
fungi and other organisms invisible to the naked 
eye are the miners and chemists forever building 
and destroying in the dark spaces of the soil. We 
shall remember, as we read the story of the soil, 
that science has helped us to develop a chemical fer¬ 
tilizer industry, still in its infancy, but already pro¬ 
ducing annually seven million tons of material. 
Science has taught us also how to use these chemi¬ 
cals and the grasses, clovers and other plants^ to 
make the soil rich and mellow and a fit dwelling 
place for its invisible workers. It may seem 
strange that the story of the soil should have to 
deal with questions of taxation, tariffs, immigra¬ 
tion, transportation, banking and education. This 
is true, nevertheless, for the soil is at the foundation 
of our social and economic structure and every good 
American must hope and pray that our Nation will 
have the grace and the wisdom to deal justly with 
the soil and the men who till it, and so keep the 
strength that comes to us as we touch Mother Earth. 
One who knows the language can always read the “Story of the Soil” from scenes 
like this. 
