. Community civics . it life depends. Suppose, for an instant, that the soil should betaken away and that there were no more the kind ofan earths surface upon which plants and trees andall kinds of vegetation could grow. Very soon allanimals in the world would die from starvation. Thesoil and what it produces make the foundation forprosperity. The soil is necessary for the main-tenance of life. 2. The Fertility of the Soil Must Be Conserved. —This is not only necessary for good farming ; it isnecessary for good citizenship. It is the responsi-bility of the farmer towards the world o
. Community civics . it life depends. Suppose, for an instant, that the soil should betaken away and that there were no more the kind ofan earths surface upon which plants and trees andall kinds of vegetation could grow. Very soon allanimals in the world would die from starvation. Thesoil and what it produces make the foundation forprosperity. The soil is necessary for the main-tenance of life. 2. The Fertility of the Soil Must Be Conserved. —This is not only necessary for good farming ; it isnecessary for good citizenship. It is the responsi-bility of the farmer towards the world of people thathe must help to feed, and towards the coming genera-tions who, in the future, must be fed from the prod-ucts of the land. 184 THE COUNTRY COMMUNITYS WORK 185 The amount of farm land on the earths surface islimited. The number of people in the world issteadily increasing. It is possible to farm in a waythat will keep the soil fertile or to farm in a waythat will make it impossible to grow a crop on the. •2 >...f^- The Result of Unintelligent Farming. land after a few years. In New England there are agreat many abandoned farms, — left idle becausethe soil has become too worn out to produce a the wonderfully fertile black loam of the CornBelt is showing in places that its fertility can beexhausted through continuous cropping to corn. 186 COMMUNITY CIVICS The plant food in the soil is like money depositedin a bank. Every time a crop is taken from the soilit takes a certain amount of this plant food from thesoil. This is like checks drawn on a bank one knows that if one continues to check onhis bank account without making any deposits, hisbalance at the bank will diminish until he willhave nothing left upon which to check. In the sameway, if a farmer continually takes the fertility fromthe soil through growing crops on it without puttinganything back, it will become exhausted and it willbe impossible to grow any more crops on it.
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