132 3TATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



SOIL ANALYSIS FROM A CHEMIST'S STANDPOINT. 



PROF. A. J. PATTEN, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen — The subject which has been 

 assigned to me at this meeting I have tried to treat in a popular way, 

 and if you will pardon me, I will read what I have, because I fear if 

 I trust to my memory, I omit saying some thing that I very much 

 want to say. There is so much to be said on this subject, that I do 

 not want to miss saying some of the things that I particularly wish to 

 say at this time. 



There exists today two distinct views of the soil. The one considers 

 the soil simply as a place in which plants may grow and from which 

 they receive their food. In this view of the soil the supply of plant- 

 food, available for plant use is considered as fixed for any given soil 

 and that its productive capacity is entirely governed, under good farm 

 practice, by the amount of plant-food contained in the first few inches 

 of the surface soil and the demands made upon this supply by the crops 

 grown. Infertility has generally been attributed to an actual deficiency 

 of plant-food in the soil or a lack of available plant food. In this dis- 

 cussion, it should be remembered that by plant-food is meant nitrogen, 

 phosphoric acid and potash. 



It may be said that this view of the soil originated with the famous 

 German scientist, Liebig, popularly known as the ''Father of Agricul- 

 tural Chemistry." About the middle of the 19th century Liebig pre- 

 sented to the world his views as set forth in the following four laws: 



First. "A soil can be termed fertile only when it contains all the 

 materials requisite for the nutrition of plants, in the required quantity, 

 and in the requisite form." 



Second. "With every crop a portion of these ingredients is removed. 

 A part of this portion is again added from the inexhaustible store of 

 the atmosphere; another part, however, is lost forever if not replaced 

 by man." 



Third. "The fertility of the soil remains unchanged, if all the in- 

 gredients of a crop are given back to the land. Such a restitution is 

 effected by manures." 



Fourth. "The manure produced in the course of husbandry is not suffi- 

 cient to maintain permanently the fertility of a farm; it lacks the con- 

 stituents which are annually exported in the shape of grain, hay, milk 

 and live stock." 



The promulgation of these views had a great influence upon the agri- 

 cultural practice of the time which has extended even down to the 

 present and placed an added emphasis on the value of the mineral plant- 

 food constituents. It was believed that with the results of a chemical 

 analysis of a soil it would be possible to determine its crop-producing 

 power and likewise its fertilizer requirements. This as you will readily 

 see, makes the question of soil fertility a simple problem in mathematics. 

 Knowing the percentage of plant-food constituents in any given soil. 

 it is only necessary to apply the multiplication table to find out the 



