5<D VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



THE MAKE-UP OF THE SOIL. 



Joseph L. Hills, 



Director Experiment Station, Dean Agricultural Department, 



University of Vermont. 



In last year's report I wrote "The Story of the Making of the Soil." 

 It was a tale which has been many times told, but which I rewrote — 

 not that I had anything new to say — but with the hope that I might 

 interest some Vermont boys and girls in the story of the way in 

 which the greatest of all farm tools, the soil, was made. I pointed out 

 how the soil was born of rock; how in the early days the volcanoes, 

 earthquakes, hot springs, heat, pressure 'and the like were the great 

 rock crushers, disintegraters and dissolvers; and how to-day the less 

 spectacular, but not less potent, effects of the weather, the wind and 

 the wave, the ice, the rain drop, and the varied effects of life, such as 

 lichens, bacteria, earth worms, plant rootlets and the like help in soil 

 making. 



I stated in that article that I should continue it in my next if I had the 

 opportunity. It seems worth while now to discuss some of the ma- 

 terials of which the soil is made. Soils are generally studied to-day in 

 our agricultural colleges and in the high schools, which are beginning 

 to take up agricultural studies, from four or five different stand- 

 points. The geologist, the chemist, the biologist, the physicist and the 

 economist, all have something to say touching this great mother of 

 us all, from whom we sprang and to whom we return. Last year we 

 listened to the geologist. Let us now hear what the chemist has to 

 say as to the soil. His tale is a less thrilling one than that of his prede- 

 cessor; it reads less interestingly; but some will find therein more of 

 what they deem of practical value. 



Chemistry is the science which tells us of the constitution, or make 

 up, of anything. For instance, it is the chemist that tells us how much 

 gold there is in a lot of ore, who discloses the amount of plant food 

 in the fertilizer, of human or animal food in various feeds. Many 

 people are apt to think that the chemist is so wise that he can tell 

 almost anything. As a matter of fact there are many things of 

 which he is ignorant, for he is but a human like the rest of us. He has 

 not, for instance, learned all there is to be known about the soil. He 

 cannot analyze soil and, with any degree of certainty, prescribe for its 



