TVVEXTY-FIVE YEARS OF CIUiMICAL INVESTIGATION'. IO3 



may be broug'ht about by factors other than mere deficiency of 

 plant food in the soil the Cape investigations have made abun- 

 dantly clear, and in many cases where there is no question of 

 barrenness at all the difference of texture between soils suited, 

 let us say, to the cultivation of potatoes and other soils of a more 

 clayey nature has exercised a controlling influence upon the class 

 of farming practised. It has been observed during the course of 

 our investigations that geological influences perform an important 

 part in this connection. For instance, mechanical analyses of the 

 soils taken from the south-western corner of the Cape Province, 

 where the Malmesbury and Table Mountain geological series 

 prevail, show that these soils are, on the whole, coarser than 

 the soil of the area within which, for the most part, the Bokkeveid 

 series occurs ; and this, again, yields a soil of coarser texture 

 than the rest of the country from which soils have been examined, 

 and covered chiefly by the rocks of the Karroo system, and more 

 particularly by those of the Beaufort series. Then, again, the 

 soils of the northern part of George and the Division of Union- 

 dale are considerably coarser in texture than the soils south of 

 the great Outeniqua range — that is to say, than those of the 

 southern portion of the Division of George and the Knysna 

 Division. In thirty soils taken south of the Outeniquas the per- 

 centage of fine earth — i.e., of particles below ^ mm. diameter — 

 in the soil averaged about 94.5, but in twenty-one soils collected 

 to the north of the mountajn range the fine earth averaged onlv 

 69.3 per cent. I must confess that we have not had much 

 opportunity of studying the physical texture of the Cape soils ; 

 mechanical analyses have, however, been made of soils selected 

 to typify three broad classes, namely, the grain soils of the south- 

 western districts, the fruit and general farm soils of the Wor- 

 cester-Robertson area, and the deposited silts of the Orange 

 River. 



From a chemical point of view the poverty of the Table 

 Mountain and Malmesbury series soils has been shown to con- 

 trast with the richness of the soils where the Bokkeveid series 

 and the Karroo system prevail, not to dwell upon the high chemi- 

 cal value of the river silts, the products of the erosion and de- 

 nudation that are going on elsewhere. 



The knowledge which we have gained about our soils is 

 not so exclusively due to the accumulation of routine analyses 

 as in the case of some other phases of our work, for much of 

 the soil work was of my own initiation ; but even here it remains 

 true that the collation of individual results constitutes the sum 

 of them an investigation of exceeding value. 



Fermented Liquors. 

 The list given towards the close of my introductory remarks, 

 summarising numerically certain aspects of the Cape laboratories' 

 work, includes 4,769 analyses of brandy, wine, and vinegar. If 

 anyone were to enquire what these analyses have resulted in, 

 he would at once be told that their outcome has been the Wine, 

 Brandy, Whisky and Spirits Act of 1906 and the Wine, Spirits, 



