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Forming only the top layer of soil, farmers' tools are used to till the soil, provide nutrients to the roots of plants and encourage their development. In one place you find bare rock and utter barrenness; in another you find fertile soil as deep as an inch or two, covered with a thin layer of*; and again, in a third, you come to fertile soil so deep as to sustain a rich vegetation. But this fertile formation is not anywhere infinite in thickness: at never very great depths subsoils of the quality of the neighboring mountains are certainly to be found. So how are all the nutrients needed by plants, animals, and humans formed? This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.