Your soil must have all the nutrients for the plants to grow and thrive. If the soil contains enough nutrients and humus, you are ready to begin. Its structure must be hard enough to hold plants together yet soft enough for air to reach the roots. Soil structure is classified as sandy, clay or loam. Sandy soil is loose and doesn't hold water.
Clay soil is hard when dry and sticky when wet.
Loam is a mixture of both of these. Loam will also have large amounts of humus. Compost has been with man for a long time. Fertilizers were easy to use and became popular. As a result, the practice of composting began to decline.