194 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



has the color anything to do with this? The color is probably 

 indicative of a subtle difference— a chemical or biological differ- 

 ence — what you will; but that difference which is indicated by 

 the color shows you the best crops and the best treatment to give 

 your soil as compared with another soil. 



Now, science is trying to determine, if possible, what it is 

 in this red soil, what it is in that black soil, apart from the plant 

 food, that makes the plant's activities grow, the something that 

 builds up the system, makes it want to grow and live as we do 

 when we are feeling in first class condition and our digestion is 

 all right. 



CHEMISTRY OF THE SOIL. 



The chemistry of the soil, as we are working it out today, is 

 not the chemistry of the mineral matters, as Liebig told us. His 

 work was all right so far as it went, but it stopped just short of 

 this: That there is a chemistry of the minerals, and there is a 

 chemistry of the organic properties of the soil; and we are find- 

 ing now that the chemistry of the soil is running parallel to the 

 chemistry of our human bodies. The soil chemist and the biologi- 

 cal chemist for the study of the causes of diseases, are running 

 right together in a parallel line. We are finding the same prop- 

 erty in the soil that they are finding in the animals which causes 

 fatigue or exhaustion, and, if carried too far, the death of the 

 organism. We are finding in soils substances that produce sickly 

 or weak plants, that produce plants that are easily subject to dis- 

 ease, just as we find, as a cause of our own ill condition, sub- 

 stances that are injurious to the proper functioning of the body. 

 The subject is of immense importance. 



As a result of this investigation, we are beginning to learn 

 the reasons for the special adaptation of soils to particular crops. 

 We are beginning to understand for the first time, as we never 

 would have understood if we had persisted in the lines of soil 

 mineral chemistry, why it is that the pippin will grow better on 

 one kind of soil, that the Winesap is best adapted to another soil, 

 that the varieties of tobacco are grown on their separate and dis- 

 tinct soils; we are beginning to understand now the fact that we 

 have realized, in practice, that our different varieties of grapes, 

 whether for wine or for table use or for grape juice, etc., are 

 adapted to different soils, that they do their best and develop as 

 we want them to on different kinds of soils. These matters we are 

 beginning to understand, and they are forcing us to realize that 



