^20 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



foot weighs four million pounds; that the application of two hundred pounds 

 of guano or superphosphate may double the crop; yet this dose of manure is 

 only one twenty-thousandth part of the soil to which it is applied. The 

 chemical test is only one in twenty thousand, while the agricultural test is 

 one in two! But the larger part of the soil is insoluble in acids, usually not 

 more than five per cent, and seldom more than 10 per cent, is soluble in 

 acids, yet it is in the soluble part that we seek the most important chemicals 

 of agriculture. 



THE PASSIVE AND THE ACTIVE CONSTITUENTS OF SOILS. 



The largest part of soils in this State is made up of materials insoluble in 

 hydrochloric acid, which are of little or no value in agriculture aside from 

 their physical properties, having no direct relation to vegetable nutrition. 

 Sand and clay make the great bulk of all our soils, and as one or the other 

 predominates we have an open and porous soil, or a compact and tenacious 

 soil. Clay forms no part of the ash of cultivated plants, and silica is con- 

 sidered to be of very little importance, though found in the ash of all plants. 

 Even in very fertile lands the matters insoluble in acid (sand and clay) make 

 up 90 per cent of the mineral matter of the soil. They are the passive 

 elements of plant growth and, while of little value as a direct plant food, are 

 of great value by reason of their relation to the physical properties of soils. 



QUICK AND SLOW SOILS. 



Where sand is the principal constituent in a soil it is called light; where 

 clay predominates the soil is called heavy. For sandy soils I propose the 

 name quick and for clay lands sloio. The sandy soils are open and porous, 

 easily tilled, quickly plowed and hoed, the water is quick to pass through, 

 the crop comes up quick and matures early, the benefit of manures is sure 

 the first season, but their action soon ceases. On the other hand clay is 

 slow — slow to drain and dry, to plow and cultivate; it brings up its crop 

 slowly and ripens it at its leisure; the action of manures is slow and lasting 

 ■and the land is slow to wear out. I think quich and sloiv describes the two 

 kinds of soil better than light and heavy, especially as a cubic foot of light 

 sand weighs more than a cubic foot of heavy clay. The light soil is really 

 the heavier! 



QUICK SOIL OF THE PLAINS. 



The soil of the plains is quick. Sand is the leading material, constituting 

 about 90 per cent, of the soil, while clay makes only 2 to 5 per cent. Such 

 land has all the advantages and disadvantages of a quick soil and requires 

 the treatment demanded by quick soils to secure satisfactory cropping. 



EXPLAINING THE ANALYSES. 



On referring to the table of analyses, you see how large a per cent, of these 

 soils is insoluble in acid — the passive elements of the soil. Then follows a 

 list of substances in relatively small amount which make up the active ele- 

 ments of plant growth. Some of these are in very small amount — so small 

 as to seem of little account. But when we consider the large amount of 

 material in an acre of soil, we see that this relatively small amount become* 



