SOILS AND FERTILIZERS, 



DR. PAUL SCHWEITZER, COLUMBIA, MO. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 



The passing of a fertilizer inspection law by the General Assem- 

 bly of the State of Missouri, was intended to afford protection to the 

 farmer against attempted frauds on the part of manufacturers or dealers 

 in fertilizers, and is a beginning in the right direction. The law is 

 imperfect, however, and needs amendment, which it will doubtless 

 receive at the proper time. Its very passage is an indication of grow- 

 ing interest by progressive farmers in manures and fertilizers, as the 

 best means for increasing soil fertility, and for obtaining larger crops. 

 To afford correct information on the principles of manuring, upon the 

 knowledge of which success so largely depends, must be my excuse 

 for going somewhat deeper into the matter than perhaps the subject 

 upon which you have invited me to address you warrants. I ask you, 

 therefore, to give me a patient hearing. 



THE SOIL. 



Formation — The soil is primarily a prodact of the disintegration 

 of rocks. Weather and chemical agencies break these down, and the 

 floating power of running water, grinding and pulverizing the material, 

 carries the particles to lower levels. There the broadening of the 

 streams checks the velocity of the current, and the material, so far 

 buoyed up and carried along by the moving water, subsides and forms 

 land. This grows by accretion from year to year, until it pushes 

 through the water, where occasional overflows add to its height, until it 

 escapes eventually even these, and becomes the fit abode of man. 



In this way most of the soils of our State have originated. The 

 process still continues, and hundreds of thousands of tons of valuable 

 material are carried yearly by the turbid floods of the Mississippi and 

 its tributaries to the ocean, there to build at some future time a conti- 

 nent to be the seat of an empire like our own. The fine material in the 

 process of transportation is naturally carried further than the coarse, 



