366 ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



The soil beneath our feet is such a common thing, that it is ordin- 

 arily given little consideration, although our existence depends upon 

 its fruitfulness, its preservation and not destruction and final ex- 

 haustion. Among some eighty chemical elements separated from 

 the earth, and the almost innumerable combinations of the same, 

 there are only a few considered as indispensible to crop production. 

 The oft repeated elements, potash, soda, magnesia, lime, phosphoric 

 acid, sulphur and silica must be present in proper proportions to 

 produce successful crops, and one lacking may determine the crop 

 yield. That a tremendous warfare, or contest of the elements has 

 been going on for ages is not to be doubted. Heat and cold, fire and 

 water are ever striving for supremacy. The granite foundation, con- 

 stituting the earth's crust, may be compared to the slag of iron fur- 

 naces poured out in flowing streams, gradually cooled and, for a 

 time, barren of all vegetation, but subjected to disintegration by 

 the elements: freezing, thawing, and the carbonic acid of the air 

 gradually dissolving and disintegrating the particles containing lime, 

 iron, silica, etc., until the spores of lichens and other plants find a 

 congenial condition for development. 



That nothing remains permanently fixed is very evident; contin- 

 ents being levelled, mountains thrown up, volcanic forces always 

 active, and the streams steadily bearing to the oceans the sediments 

 and mineral elements in solution, causing alternate elevations and 

 depressions, are facts beyond contradiction. The sedimentary rocks 

 are undoubtedly derived from the igneous, carried everywhere 

 through the agencies of water, wind, glaciers and volcanos, so evi- 

 dent on all parts of the earth. Torrential rains in tropical regions, 

 a more moderate precipitation in the Temperate Zone, with snow 

 a.nd ice reducing to lower level mountain peaks, are demolishing the 

 mainlands, adding the sediments along coastal plains and the ocean 

 beds. 



In this latitude (40 degrees), the average yearly rainfall is three 

 and a half (3|) feet which in a hundred years amounts to three hun- 

 dred and fifty (350) feet of water, flowing from springs, streams and 

 surface flow, ever bearing the elements needed for organic exist- 

 ence. The soils upon which all animal life depends, excepting that 

 in oceans, are therefore the most important elements and the other 

 natural resources pale into insignificance in comparison. If dia- 

 monds, gold and silver, minerals and metals had never been dis- 

 covered, the soil alone could have, and might continue to afford sus- 

 tenance and life to all animal creation, including the human race. 



Incorporated with the disintegrated rock particles, is the organic 

 material derived from grasses and plants of various kinds, together 

 with great forests that flourish during long periods, and to these were 

 added the insect and animal remains, on the dry land and the re- 

 mains of seaweeds, minute organisms, and monsters of the deep 

 oceans, storing up the elements now forming the soil and rock. That 

 the development was gradual is evident, from the lichens and 

 mosses, to those of a higher order of plants, including the cereals 

 upon which depends herbivorous animal life, which in turn supports 

 the carnivera, so that we have a cycle of creation, and destruction 

 going on in which the human race, in that fine art termed civiliza- 

 tion, excels. 



