“The addition of organic matter to a soil either as crop or weed residue, or as farmyard manure, at once makes that soil a suitable home for the animal life—the fungi—and the bacteria, whose function it is to reduce organic matter to the condition of inorganic matter. An increase of organic plant residue or manure thus creates some of the conditions favorable to its own destruction. The rate of oxidation in the soil is now no longer what it was; the oxidizing agents have increased with the material to be oxidized. If, therefore, a soil is laid down in pasture or receives an annual dressing of farmyard manure, the nitrogen in that soil will only increase so long as the annual increment of organic matter exceeds the annual decrement by oxidation. If this increment is a limited quantity it will be met before long with an army of destroyers competent to effect its destruction. The richest soils are thus the most liable to waste and demand the greatest exercise of the farmer’s skill to preserve their condition. When the conditions of the soil are changed, when the pasture is plowed up or the arable land is left without manure, there is at first a rapid loss of nitrogen, but the rate of loss soon diminishes. The organic matter most easily attacked has disappeared. The army of oxidizing organisms has been reduced to starvation. A partial equilibrium is established when the annual destruction of organic matter amounts to little more than the annual residue of crop and weeds; but an absolute equilibrium is reached only when the annual loss by nitrogen is equaled by the atmospheric supply. In every case nature seeks to establish an equilibrium.” For the American farmer to obtain good heavy crops, and consequently, large crop residues, there is only one way to do it. Invest some money in ground phosphate rock, and after applying it, plant a legume—cow peas, red clover, etc., and the investment will pay you the biggest dividend you ever received in your life. Alfalfa-Growing in the South BY JOSEPH E. WING, MECHANICSBURG, OHIO. [Illustration: JOSEPH E. WING.]