154 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS. 



sive crops are taken without a due return of plant food. Their amounts have there- 

 fore been considered in detail. 



This soil is somewhat poor in lime, and I am of the opinion than an application of 

 marl or lime would be beneficial, both to supply plant food and to improve the tilth. 



Such a soil should be well drained. By this means, increased crop yields and 

 greater ease in working would be obtained. Working the soil when wet, should be 

 avoided. 



It woulfl undoubtedly prove of advantage to increase the amount of humus of the 

 soil. This can be done with farm-yard manure, well composted swamp muck, or by turn- 

 ing under some green crop, — preferably clover or pease. Such organic matter contain? a 

 large amount of nitrogen, one of the most valuable of all soil constituents, and wili effect 

 an improvement not only chemically, but physically. 



To sum up, this is a good soil of average fertility, and one that can be materially 

 improved on the lines above indicated. It is a strong soil and well adapted for most 

 agricultural crops, and more especially for cereals and fruit trees, provided that other 

 conditions, such as the climate and season, are favourable. 



The substance of this report was communicated to Mr. Remi Henault, who had 

 procured and forwarded the sample early in the spring of the present year. Under date 

 of October 22nd, he writes as follows : — 



" I am very much pleased to be able to inform you that the analysis and report 

 that I received from you concerning my soil, have been of great service to me and the 

 members of the Agricultural Circle of our parish. You informed me that the soil was 

 poor in lime. I therefore applied this material at the rate of 20 bushels per acre, and 

 as a result my crop was nearly doubled. Next year I shall plough under a growing crop 

 of pease and also the aftermath of clover, and report results." 



It is well to remember that the continued use of lime by itself will in time exhaust 

 the soil, since one of the functions of lime is to set free and render available locked-up 

 plant food in the soil. It must be applied with some organic manure, a green crop 

 turned under and swamp muck, if the future as well as the present is to be considered. 



No. 9.— SOIL FROM THE COUNTY OF BONAVENTURE. 



This sample from Maria, County of Bonaventure, Quebec, was obtained from newly 

 broken land that had been cut, stumped and burnt during the summer of 1891 and 1892. 

 Previous to this, it had been well wooded with birch, maple, spruce and pine. A third 

 and final burning of the bush and stumps had taken place in the spring of 1893, the sam- 

 ple for analysis being procured in November of that year, when it was given a shallow 

 ploughing. 



It is a yellow soil, with a shade of red, evidently due to iron, and contains a large 

 number of fragments of undecomposed rock material. Examination proved the coarse 

 material (separated by a 1-5 mm. sieve) to be 36 -63 per cent, the fine soil, of which the 

 analysis was made, being 63*37 per cent. 



In the table of analyses, it will be noticed that the percentage of clay and fine 

 sand is 40 - 92. The microscope shows that a considerable part of that amount is fine 

 sand. It is, therefore, probable that the clay and sand are in such proportions as to 

 render the soil favourable, as regards tilth, to the growth of most farm crops. 



Organic Matter and Nitrogen'. — Although the appearance of this soil would lead 

 to the belief that it was deficient in these valuable constituents, analysis proved to the 

 contrary. Usually a rough estimate of the percentage of humus can be made from the 

 colour of the air-dried soil ; the iron in this soil had been oxidized by exposure, and the 

 colour was no longer any criterion of the soil's richness. Good soils of average fertility 

 contain, as a rule, from 5 per cent to 10 per cent of humus and from *15 per cent to *25 

 per cent of nitrogen ; the soil under consideration possesses 11 "80 per cent of the 

 former and "238 per cent of the latter. In these constituents, therefore, this specimen 

 is by no means lacking, though there can be no doubt that, to a large degree, they 

 were destroyed in the burning of the land. 



