ABSTRACT
The most successful gentleman farmer of the area tried out a new fertilizer or method of tillage and declared it a success. The woodsman needed a longer time for clearing land than the Prairie farmer did for eradicating sod, but the forests rendered this fact tolerable with a greater assortment of edible vegetation, and thus something like a balance was maintained. The land was looked upon as a somewhat stationary reservoir of plant food, and it was thought that knowledge of the soils chemical elements, and the demands made on it by a given crop, would determine what the yield would be, as well as how long this yield might be maintained. The natural vegetation in the more humid regions is likely to be trees, in the less watered places tall grass, in subhumid areas short grass, and in arid localities a varying assortment of tenacious vegetation, each performing a special function in soil building, different from all others.
