Virgin soil

“ When, however, the virgin soil is broken up by the plough and brought into cultivation the native vegetation and the crop are alike removed, and therefore the sources of gain are considerably reduced. ”

“ But we must add humus, or vegetable matter, to the soil. You remember that the virgin soils contained a great deal of vegetable matter and plant food, but by the continuous growing of crops like wheat, corn, and cotton, and by constant shallow tillage, both humus and plant food have been used up. Consequently much of our cultivated soil to-day is hard and dead. ”

“ On this account all the processes above noted whereby the waste of plant and animal life is carried below the surface are of the utmost importance in the creation and preservation of the soil. It has been found, indeed, in almost all cases, necessary for the farmer to maintain the fertility of his fields to plough-in quantities of such organic waste. By so doing he imitates the work which is effected in virgin soil by natural action. As the process is costly in time and material, it is often neglected or imperfectly done, with the result that the fields rapidly diminish in fertility. ”

“ Without an adequate return to the land of the matters removed in the produce, its fertility cannot be maintained for many years. In newly opened countries, where old forests have been cleared and the land brought under cultivation, the virgin soil often possesses at first a high degree of fertility, but gradually its productive power decreases from year to year. ”

“ It is now necessary to consider more closely the true cause of the conversion of arable land to pasture—the declining productivity of the soil—and the cause of the restoration of this land to cultivation—the restoration of its fertility.
The connection between soil fertility and the system of husbandry has been explained by Dr. Russell, of the Rothamsted Experiment Station:
Virgin land covered with its native vegetation appears to alter very little and very slowly in composition. ”

“ Much of the soil in them is better by far than that of many productive farms at home; only our colonial pioneer-farmers have no notion of any scientific methods in agriculture. They have been spoilt by the wondrous fertility of the rich black forest mould, and the virgin volcanic soils. ”

“ Every part of nature teaches that the passing away of one life is the making room for another. The oak dies down to the ground, leaving within its rind a rich virgin mould which will impart a vigorous life to an infant forest. The pine leaves a sandy and sterile soil, the harder woods, a strong and fruitful mould. So this constant abrasion and decay of our lives makes the soil of our future growth. The wood we now mature, when it becomes mould, determines the character of our second growth. ”

“ In these great fields, and in small patches now improved, crops can not be expected unless water is applied by man. There is doubtless force in the claim that these soils are potentially marked by exceptional richness, due not only to the fact that they are virgin soils as related to man, but because they have not suffered the leaching and waste of important elements which have affected soils in lands of large rainfall. ”

“ This luxuriance of growth does not proceed entirely from the moisture supplied by the ditches and drains; the soil naturally is uncommonly fertile: and whatever springs from it, whether planted by the hand of man, and nourished, while growing, by his attention and skill, or its spontaneous production, bears witness to this uncommon fertility. The country abounds in corn and vineyards ”

“ Another line in which very great improvement is shown is in maintaining the fertility of the soil. The old method was to exhaust the fertility of a field and then clear a new one; and it is doubtful if one farmer in a hundred could have answered the question, “Why does land become sterile after long cultivation?” for they had no conception of what the chemical elements of the soil were which are necessary to its fertility. There are two theories of fertilizing and fertility: one, that the soil is a mine to be worked out, and which will inevitably become unproductive in the process ”

“ And this, indeed, is all the fertilization they need,—so strong is the soil all over the Campagna. The accretions and decay of thousands of years have covered it with a loam whose richness and depth are astonishing. Dig where you will, for ten feet down, and you do not pass through its wonderfully fertile loam into gravel, and the slightest labor is repaid a hundred-fold. ”

“ Their mechanical texture is not essentially an index to their fertility, nor to the manures required to enable them to furnish food to plants. It is true, that each kind of soil appears to have some general quality of fertility or barrenness which is well known to practical men, yet this is not founded on the fact that the clay or the sand, or the vegetable matter, enter more largely into the constitution of plants than they do when they are not present in so great quantities, but on certain other facts which will be hereafter explained. ”

“ It is to be remarked that clay and humus are two of the most highly hygrometric substances known, and it is peculiarly interesting to observe, that by a beneficent provision of nature, they also form a principal part of all fertile soils. The quantity of water imbibed by the soil is important to its fertility, in so far as it prevents it becoming rapidly dry after having been moistened by the rains. ”

“ Every one of these properties of the fertile soil, and consequently every one of the conditions necessary for the growth and development of plant roots, is influenced in some way by every operation performed on the soil, whether it be plowing, harrowing, cultivating, applying manure, growing crops, harvesting, or anything else, and the thoughtful farmer will frequently ask himself the question: "How is this going to effect the fertility of my soil or the conditions necessary for profitable crop production?" ”

“ The older the country has become, as a rule, the more obnoxious has been the vegetation that the soil has produced of its own accord. But there has been in my recollection, which goes back more than seventy years, a great many changes in the crops of vegetation on those lands, showing to my satisfaction that there is an inherent potency in nature, in rich soil that will cover itself every year with a growth of some kind. If it is not cultivated and made to produce fruit, vegetables, and cereals, it will nevertheless produce a crop of some kind. ”

“ Moreover, there is no reason why the soil should not be equally fertile, if the cultivation of the plains were long continued upon the uplands, and if it were not for the dense shades of the almost unbroken forests. ”

“ In the land already under tillage it is obvious that the subsoil is covered with a soil actually in use, consisting of vegetable mould annually loosened by the spade or plough, and admitting the penetration of light, of air, and of water, to the subjacent and half decomposed matter. In the uncultivated neighbouring tracts we shall on the contrary find it covered with a thick mass of peat, the immediate soil on which the heath, the sphagnum, the carices, and the rushes alternately flourish and die, adding fresh matter to this already impenetrable substance. ”

“ Its root is perennial; its stem annual, twining to the height of from fifteen to twenty feet. They bear male and female flowers on different plants, and the female is the only one used for planting.
Soil.—Rich, friable clay, and hearty loams, and vegetable molds are the best soils. A wet subsoil is fatal to their health. Any rich, light, dry (but not droughty) soil suits them. A large crop may be obtained from our rich alluvions, or bottom lands; but although uplands yield a less crop, the quality is regarded as decidedly superior. A wet clay subsoil is not good. ”

“ Four substances, mingled in very variable proportions, enter into the composition of fertile soil, or arable land, namely: sand or silica, clay, limestone, and humus, or vegetable mold. Each one of these ingredients separately would make but very poor soil, quite unsuited for agriculture; but united, mixed together, they fulfill the conditions necessary to fertility. Arable land generally contains all four, with the predominance sometimes of one, sometimes of another. The soil takes the name of its most abundant constituent. ”

“ A long period of time was required for this work, and for the mixing and shifting from place to place that have occurred. Organic matter has been a factor in the making of soils, and is in high degree a controlling one in their production of food.
Organic Matter.—Nature is resourceful and is constantly alert to repair the wastes and mistakes of man. We may gain fundamental truth about soil fertility through observance of her methods in restoring land to a fertile condition. ”

“ In the first place, you buy your land, of which there is a fair supply yet to be had, at about ten dollars per acre. The soil here is mostly strong, clayey loam, with a heavy top deposit of vegetable mould, very rich and lasting. It is easily cleared, and, if not on a steep hillside, where the perpetual rains wash the humus away, retains its fertility a long while. ”

“ Thus feldspar, on being pulverized, yields potash; talcose slate yields magnesia; marls yield lime, etc.
The soil formed entirely from rock, contains, of course, no organic matter. [O] Still it is capable of bearing plants of a certain class, and when these die, they are deposited in the soil, and thus form its organic portions, rendering it capable of supporting those plants which furnish food for animals. Thousands of years must have been occupied in preparing the earth for habitation by man.
As the inorganic or mineral part of the soil is usually the largest, we will consider it first. ”

“ The bottoms of the valley, many of which are of rich alluvial loam, have lain fallow ever since, and will perhaps continue to be neglected until the genius of civilization shall have spread its beneficent influences over the land. This soil is the more valuable for cultivation on account of the facilities for irrigation which the river affords; as it too frequently happens that the best lands of the settlements remain unfruitful for want of water. ”

“ The protected lands, deprived of the sweet water which would have washed from them the salt that now spoils their fertility, and of the natural dressing that Providence sends down to them every spring and autumn, are now productive of only a little coarse wiry grass and thistles, and the dried soil is white with saline efflorescence. ”

“ By fertility is meant the power of the soil to furnish plant-food. Fertile soil is "rich" soil. By tillage is meant frequent stirring of the soil. For example, Billy Boy and his chum each have a flower garden side by side of equal size. Each boy sows seeds from the same bag. The same sunshine and the same rains give vigor to each flower-bed alike. Billy Boy spades the soil deep and makes it fine. His chum stirs the top and leaves clods on the surface. ”

“ The recuperation of the soil, too, is a matter of great importance. Some people think if they put manure on the land, that is all it requires. There is some land that would be better with sand mixed with the soil; some would be benefitted by having clay mixed with it. If we would pursue this course we might cultivate less land and receive a greater reward for our labor. ”

“ On soils that are light, again, which naturally contain little clay, the grasses will thrive more rapidly, a thick sward will be sooner formed, but the tendency of the rains to wash out the clay may prevent them from ever attaining that luxuriance which is observed upon the old pastures of the clay lands.
On undrained heaths and commons, and generally on any soil which is deficient in some fertilizing element, neither abundant herbage, nor good crops of any other kind, can be expected to flourish. ”

“ Our best success comes only when we work with her. When a soil has been robbed by man, and has been abandoned on account of inability to produce a profitable crop, the first thing nature does is to produce a growth of weeds, bushes, briers, or aught else of which the soil chances to have the seeds. It is nature's effort to restore some organic matter—some humus-making material—to the nearly helpless land. Vegetable matter, rotting on and in the soil, is the life-giving principle. It unlocks a bit of the great store of inert mineral plant-food during its growth and its decay. ”

“ What with the greater intrinsic fertility and the great depth of soil available for plant growth, much smaller units of land will suffice for the maintenance of a family in arid countries; a fact which is even now being illustrated in the irrigated region of the United States, where ten acres of irrigated land instead of 40 or 160, as in the East, form the unit. ”

“ The holy Catholic Church increases as "things which grow;" a few husbandmen—missionaries—are required to set the first seedlings and plants in the soil, to water them, watch over them, and see that they thrive and flourish; the rest of the process is a matter of seeds wafted by the wind, falling and taking root in a fertile soil, which has been already prepared for their reception. If there were no other means of propagation than the toil and sweat of the husbandman, how long would it take to cover the whole earth with vegetation? ”

“ CHAPTER III THE ORIGIN OF FERTILE SOIL
“Fertile or arable soil,” resumed Uncle Paul, “constitutes only the surface layer of earth, that which is worked by the farmer’s implements and yields nutriment to the roots of plants and promotes their development. In one place you will see bare rocks and utter barrenness; in another you find fertile soil to a depth of an inch or two, scantily carpeted with grass; and again, in a third, you come upon rich earth so deep as to maintain abundant vegetation. ”