FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 15 



REPORT OF THE STATE INSTITUTE. 



TUESDAY AFTERNOON. 



Mr. Wm. Campbell, the President of the Washtenaw Connty Farmers' 

 Institute Society, presided at this session. In the name of the business 

 men of Ann Arbor, and in behalf of the University and the farmers of 

 Washtenaw count}-, he extended a hearty welcome to the visiting dele- 

 gates from other counties and to the officers and speakers of the Agri- 

 cultural College and the State Institute. 



The topic of the afternoon was "The Soil," to be considered from 

 various standpoints. 



THE SOIL— FROM THE CHEMIST'S STANDPOINT. 



DK. K. C. KEDZIE, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MICH. 



First he looks down on it; then he looks into it. 



Let me open my subject by a quotation from the leading agriculturist 

 of this country. Prof. Johnson says: ''Chemistry has proved that the 

 soil is by no means the inert thing it appears to be. It is not a passive 

 jumble of rock dust, out of w^hi^-h air and water extract the food of 

 vegetation. It is not simply a stage on which the plant performs the 

 drama of growth. It is, on the contrary, in itself the theater of cease- 

 less activities; the seat of perpetual and complicated changes." — Hoio 

 Crops Feed, page 331. 



The chemical activity of the soil is the key to the soil problem. To 

 these incessant changes the physical forces contribute; heat and cold, 

 the splitting wedge of frost, and possibly in the final analysis we may 

 find an agent in the electrical forces that "gird the earth as with a 

 band." 



Let us count up the elemental forces that wage this endless but 

 silent warfare of nature, and line up our soldiers for inspection. Of the 

 70 elemental substances known to the chemist, and which make up the 

 entire mass of the world, only 13 contribute to and enter into farm 

 croi)S, and have been called the "Chemicals of Agriculture." Of these, 

 four make the great mass of organic substances and come first or last 

 from the air; while the nine remaining materials come entirely from 

 the soil and constitute the aSh or mineral residue when plants are 

 burned. These mineral elements are distributed in widelv varving 



