PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. — SECTION II. 39 



food in the soil has been the subject of my remarks on other occa- 

 sions, and the great question of brack or alkah was dealt with by 

 me at the first South African Irrigation Congress four months 

 back. But fundamental to them all, in my opinion, is the subject 

 of soil classification on what is primarily a physical basis as I have 

 delineated it. When that has been properly attended to we shall 

 be better able to give sound advice to practical agriculturists. 

 . This, then, should be the very first function that agronomic 

 science should underake to perform for the South African Union, 

 and I trust that ere long we shall see, not one or two investigators 

 at work in pursuance of this aim, but a whole band of workers right 

 throughout the Union, and that, as they go on in their plodding, 

 and at times perhaps monotonous labour of adding analysis to 

 analysis, and piling fact on fact they may ever bear in mind, and 

 that the Government of the Union may likewise remember the 

 words of Professor Hopkins, which I venture thus slightly to alter : 

 " Permanent agriculture is the only structure upon 



WHICH THE future PROSPERITY OF THE SoUTH AFRICAN NATION 

 CAN BE SECURED, AND THE ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL FOUNDATION 

 OF PERMANENT AGRICULTURE IS THE FERTILITY OF THE SOIL." 



