December 23, 1916 



HORTICULTUEE 



845 



SOILS. 



By Leonard Macomber, In "The Golf 

 Course." 



Text books classify "clayey soil," 

 "loam," "light sandy soil," and the 

 like and the average person looks at 

 his lawn, which to him is only plain 

 "ground" and is quite at a loss to 

 know its real description. 



The principal ingredients of soil are 

 sand, clay, gravel, and humus; and it 

 is the proportion in which these are 

 mixed that determines the kind of soil. 



A loam, as far as plants are con- 

 cerned, is a workable and a most diges- 

 tible mixture of clay, sand, silt and 

 humus, but when one or another of the 

 ingredients predominates, it gives its 

 name to the loam — viz.: sandy loam or 

 clay loam. 



A sandy soil, by adding humus, can 

 be converted into a sandy loam, and 

 a hea\-y clay soil by adding sand, peat, 

 leafmould, and often lime is necessary, 

 can be converted into a clayey loam. 



An Easy Soil Analysis. 



Aside from the feel of soil and Its 

 appearance, there are mechanical tests 

 which are not so difficult to apply. 

 First get a fair sample of the soil from 

 several different places (say a quart). 

 Weigh this and put down the weight. 

 Next put the soil in a pan at the back 

 of the stove and let it stand until thor- 

 oughly dry, but It must not be allowed 

 to burn. Weigh again and the differ- 

 ence between this and the first weight 

 is the amount of water the soil holds. 



Now put it in a hot oven for three 

 or four hours; then weigh again. The 

 humus will have burnt and the differ- 

 ence between the second and third 

 weights gives the amount of humus. 



Now in your pan is clay, sand and 

 silt. Put this soil in a wide-mouthed 

 glass bottle or Jar — a two-quart jar 

 will do; the larger the better. Fill it 

 with water and then shake it violently. 

 Then set it down on a table and ob- 

 serve. 



The sand or gravel being heaviest 

 will settle first; next the silt; while 

 the clay will remain in the water for 

 hours. After a day or so, it will be 

 seen that there are no sharp divisions, 

 but yet the different elements are sep- 

 arated definitely enough to give a 

 fairly good idea of the proportions. 

 You can then work and treat your soil 

 accordingly to make it well balanced. 

 It is hardly ever necessary to make 

 a complete chemical and mechanical 

 analysis of soil, unless one knows tor 

 certain that its failure to carry the de- 

 sired crop is entirely due to the struc- 

 ture or chemical constituents, and not 

 to position or environment or the cli- 

 mate conditions ruling in the district. 

 If soil is known to be barren, it is 



A DWARF LEMON FOR FLORISTS' USE. 



Meter's Dwarf Lemoxs 



Our picture shows a new dwarf 

 lemon which promises to be very de- 

 sirable for pot culture as it bears pro- 

 fusely while quite small. The fruit is 

 orange in color and of excellent qual- 



ity when ri] e. We are indebted to Dr. 

 W. Van Fleet of the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture for the photograph, who 

 informs us that the variety is distrib- 

 uted under the Foreign Seed and Plant 

 Introduction Number S. P. I. 23028. 



necessary to make a close analysis of 

 it to find out why it is barren. If 

 however, soil is not barren, but does 

 not carry a crop well or is under sus- 

 picion, it is well to test for nitrogen, 

 phosphoric acid, potash and lime, but 

 unnecessary to test for iron, magnesia, 

 sulphuric acid, silica, soda, or chlorine, 

 because the latter are so generally 

 present that they can be almost ig- 

 nored. 



It is almost always better to work 

 from a description and an examination 

 of samples of soil in prescribing than 

 from the closest and cleverest analysis, 

 unless the soil is known to be barren. 

 The analysis of soil can only be ap- 

 proximately true for these reasons: 



If the sample is taken from one 

 place and represents several acres, it 

 may be absolutely misleading. The 

 presence of a leguminous plant grow- 

 ing on the spot, the stalling of a beast, 

 or the presence of a piece of refuse, 

 might throw the analysis right out of 

 gear. 



If the area to be analyzed is plotted 

 and samples carefully taken from each 

 plot, the whole mixed and a small por- 

 tion analyzed— the result would be 

 substantially correct, but in all proba- 

 bility if portions of the one sample 

 l^ere sent to different chemists for 

 analysis, each one would give a slight- 

 ly different result. 



To sum up, science in regard to agri- 

 culture is a good servant, but a cruel 

 master — or in other words, a crop can- 

 not be grown by thumb and rule, and 

 unless rainfall, temperature, the hu- 

 midity of the air, the quality of the 

 soil, its conditions, drainage, power to 

 conserve water, and all such factors 

 are taken into account, and arc more 

 or less favorable — soil may be barren, 

 although it may be proved by analysis 

 to be rich and fertile. 



The analysis of poor soil placed 

 against a good soil is pretty confusing 



to the ordinary man, and so hopelessly 



unintelligible to the majority, that 



they rarely exist except in text books. 



Example: 



Poor Poor Good 

 Light Heavy Heavy 

 Example: Soils Soils Soils 



Nitrogen 0.10 0.12 0.19 



Potash 0.02 1.11 0.60 



Lime 0.10 0.00 2.61 



Phosphoric Acid... 0.05 0.05 0.27 



The usual chemical analysis of a soil 

 consists in finding out the amounts of 

 the above elements present and also 

 the percentage of magnesia and humus 

 contained. These materials, except the 

 humus, are extracted from the soil by 

 strong acids, and the action of these 

 acids is many times stronger than is 

 ever brought to bear by plants on the 

 soil in its normal condition in the 

 field. It is therefore impossible at 

 present to draw any certain conclu- 

 sions from the results of such an 

 analysis that are applicable to field 

 conditions, since the acids used in the 

 laboratory dissolve out much more of 

 the plant-food in the soil than is ever 

 in solution in normal soil water. If, 

 however, an analysis shows only a 

 very small amount of nitrogen, then 

 one can certainly conclude that the 

 soil is deficient in this element and 

 would probably be benefited by its ap- 

 plication. In inspecting new property 

 .and .iudging tlie qualities of the soil it 

 is always advisable to observe the na- 

 tural plant growth. 



A soil deficient in nitrogen is con- 

 stantly showing its condition in the 

 growth of the plants on it. Short 

 growth of straw and vine, failure to 

 develop a full dark green color in the 

 foliage and the growth of sorrell and 

 ox-eye daisy, all tell as accurately as 

 the chemist, with all his skill, that the 

 soil lacks nitrogen. It is the same 

 with the other constituents. 



It is only when a soil is extremely 

 deficient in certain plant foods that a 

 chemical analysis of it shows the cause 

 of the trouble. Usually an examina- 

 tion by an expert will suffice. 



