470 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



it. Every good farmer knows that a hard and lumpy soil will 

 not grow good crops, no matter how much plant food it may con- 

 tain. A clay soil which has been producing good crops for any 

 number of years may be so seriously injured by one injudicious 

 plowing in a wet time as to ruin it for the growing of crops for 

 two or three years. The injury lies in the modification of its 

 physical texture, not in the lessening of its fertility. A sandy 

 soil may also be seriously impaired for the growing of any crop 

 if the humus, or decaying organic matter, is allowed to burn out 

 of it. It then becomes leachy, it quickly loses its moisture, and 

 it becomes excessively hot in bright sunny weather. Similar 

 remarks may be applied to all soils. That is, the texture or 

 j>hysical condition of the soil is nearly always more important than 

 its mere richness in plant food. 



A finely divided, mellow, friable soil is more productive than 

 a hard and lumpy one of the same chemical composition because: 



It holds and retains more moisture; holds more air; presents 

 greater surface to the roots ; promotes nitrification ; hastens the 

 decomposition of the mineral elements; has less variable ex- 

 tremes of temperature; allows a better root-hold to the plant. 



In all these ways, and others, the mellowness of the soil ren- 

 ders the plant food more available and affords a congenial and 

 comfortable place in which the plant may grow. 



The reader will now see the folly of applying commercial or 

 concentrated fertilizers to lands of poor texture. He will see 

 that if potash, for example, were applied to the hard lumps of 

 Sample I. (Fig. 138), it could not be expected to aid in the growth 

 of plants, because plants cannot grow on such soil. If the same 

 quantity were applied to Sample II., however, the greater part of 

 it would be presented to the roots of plants at once, and its effects 

 would no doubt be apparent in the season's crop. The reader 

 will readily understand that it is useless to apply coTnmercial ferti- 

 lizers to lands which are not in proper physical condition for the 

 very best growth of crops. 



The poor or lumpy soil contained a greater percentage of pot- 

 ash and phosphoric acid, no doubt, because, of the lack of humus 



