LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 405 



with vegetation, by the moat wonderful disturbances and conflicts of the 

 elements. 



Over the solid rock-crusts of the earth, swept from the northward vast tor- 

 rents of mingled rock, water and mud, covered with fleets of icebergs bearing 

 loads of rock and earth at phantom speed, until all became one solid mass — 

 the soil as we now have it — an orderless, rubbishy mixture of all the minerals 

 and rock of the earth's surface, suggesting that this must have been the 

 great dumping-ground of the soil building era. 



Here, side by side, will be found boulders of the Trenton, Niagara and 

 Hamilton groups with their characteristic fossils, sandrock from the Waverly 

 group, boulders of greenstone and granite, conglomerates, and many others, 

 mingled with fossils of land and sea, with broken pieces of coal, iron and 

 copper — in fact, a commingled mass of the wreckage of a world. 



All these and many more may be found on any farm in this county. They 

 may be so finely broken up that their structure and name can be determined 

 only under the glass, still every particle of earthy dust is a perfect rock. 

 Thus we have a soil made up of fragments of all the rock formations and 

 minerals of a prehistoric world. 



All these various substances can be reduced to three, viz.: Sand, lime and 

 clay. These form more than ninety per cent of our soil ; all other forms of 

 rock, or soil, are their chemical or mechanical combinations. 



It is extremely difficult to give the exact composition of our soils. In fact, 

 in a drift soil like ours, a single field will often contain all the intermediate 

 soils from heavy clay to light sand, with sections of marsh or peat land. 

 This latter has its origin in the slow decomposition of semi-aquatic plants, 

 and is largely made up of humus. In the natural state it is not valuable in 

 general agriculture, but yields readily to intelligent treatment, and is des- 

 tined to become our most valuable land. A simple application of stable 

 manure, and grazing out the original vegetation — sedge — will, if not drained 

 too much, make it very valuable land. 



Thus from the nature and origin of our soils, made up as they are of all 

 needed chemical and mineral combinations, it is certain that, with the 

 exception of our marsh lands, they contain all the inorganic elements needed 

 for the highest state of fertility. We shall need, in order to make our soils 

 most productive, an abundance of those substances which form the chief part 

 of all living organisms, and constitute the principal part of their food. 

 These are carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and a small amount of nitrogen. 

 These compose the dark coloring of our soils, forming a substance called 

 humus, or humic acid. This substance is the decomposed remains of all 

 animal and vegetable life, since the present formation of the earth's surface, 

 and is of the greatest importance to the farmer. 



To these four principal organic foods of plants, viz. : Oxygen, hydrogen, 

 carbon and nitrogen, I will add the inorganic foods as follows : Sulphur, 

 phosphorus, chlorine, iodine, potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, 

 aluminum, silicon, iron and manganese. All of these latter in such abun- 

 dance in our soil, as to give us no uneasiness for the future. 



But the organic and most essential parts of plant food are being constantly 

 exhausted by cropping, evaporation and washing, until some of our farms 

 begin to show poverty as well as their owners. How, then, shall we supply 

 and keep up the fertility of our soils, and at the same time, add to the 

 owner's income? I shall answer with the greatest confidence: grow stock ; 



