. Agriculture for beginners. cans; fillone with soil that is loose and warm, and the other with wet clay ormuck from a swampy field. Plant a few seeds of the same kind ineach and observe how much better the dry, warm, open soil is forgrowing farm crops. SECTION VI —IMPROVING THE SOIL We hear a great deal nowadays about the exhaustion orwearing out of the soil. Many uncomfortable people arealways declaring that our lands will no longer produceprofitable crops, and hence that farming will no longer pay. Now it is true, unfortunately, that much land has beenrobbed of its fertility, and, because t
. Agriculture for beginners. cans; fillone with soil that is loose and warm, and the other with wet clay ormuck from a swampy field. Plant a few seeds of the same kind ineach and observe how much better the dry, warm, open soil is forgrowing farm crops. SECTION VI —IMPROVING THE SOIL We hear a great deal nowadays about the exhaustion orwearing out of the soil. Many uncomfortable people arealways declaring that our lands will no longer produceprofitable crops, and hence that farming will no longer pay. Now it is true, unfortunately, that much land has beenrobbed of its fertility, and, because this is true, we shouldbe deeply interested in everything that pertains to soilimprovement. THE SOIL 19 When our country was first discovered and trees weregrowing everywhere, we had virgin soils, or new soils thatwere rich and productive because they were filled withvegetable matter and plant food. There are not manyvirgin soils now because the trees have been cut off thebest lands, and these lands have been farmed so long. Fig. II. Clover is a Soil Improver without much attention that . the vegetable matter andavailable plant food have been largely used up. Now thatfresh land is scarce, it is very necessary to restore fertilityto these exhausted lands. What are some of the waysin which this can be There are several things to be done in trying to reclaimworn-out land. One of the first of these is to till the land 20 AGRICULTURE FOR BEGINNERS well. Many of you may have heard the story of the dyingfather who called his sons about him and whispered feebly, There is great treasure hidden in the garden. The sonscould hardly wait to bury their dead father before, thud,thud, thud, their picks were going in the garden. Dayafter day they dug ; they dug deep ; they dug wide. Nota foot of the crop-worn garden escaped the probing ofthe pick as the sons feverishly searched for the expectedtreasure. But no treasure was found. Let us not lose every whit of our labor ; let us plant th
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