of Science to Agriciiltitrc. 139 



there is no lack, iudeed, of diligent and active prescribers, or of 

 new recipes for improving the constitution and remedying the 

 defects of the soil : but inasmuch as they have been tried, like the 

 nostrums of the empiric, v/ithout any directing principle, we 

 know not how to adapt them to the altered chxumstances of the 

 land ; Avhilst, owing to the want of an exact nomenclature, cal- 

 culated to serve as an universal language, wherewith to express 

 the character of our soils, we are even disappointed in applying 

 them where the circumstances are conceived to be the same. 



Professor Henslow has already, in his lecture of yesterday, 

 remarked the vague sense in which many terms are used by 

 husbandmen, no less than the difference in their acceptation 

 amongst this class of persons from that which they are commonly 

 understood to imply ; and it must be confessed that what he has 

 pointed out as a defect in agricultural language in general, is 

 applicable to the nomenclature of soils more particularly. 



Thus any loose clay is called marl in some parts of England, 

 and loam in others ; whilst the latter term is interpreted by one 

 person to mean a fat earth, and by another is defined to be a 

 mixture of clay, calcareous earth, and sand, without the propor- 

 tions being stated. 



" On referring to books on husbandry" (says Sir G. Sinclair), 

 ''we are directed to a hazel-loam, a brown-loam, a clayey-loam, 

 or to a humid sandy soil, garden mould, &c. ; but, owing to the 

 perplexity arising out of the want of proper definitions, we find 

 it utterly impracticable to determine what kind of soil is meant ; 

 so that, of fifty different kinds I have myself examined in various 

 parts of the kingdom, those under the same name appeared to 

 differ greatly in their respective qualities." 



I will therefore proj)ose to the adoption of agriculturists, as a 

 preliminary step, a system of classifying soils, founded expressly 

 and entirely upon the relative proportion of their prevailing in- 

 gredients — namely, that of the siliceous, the argillaceous, and 

 calcareous earth present in them. 



In the arrangement now offered for your consideration,* we 

 will begin with those soils which contain little or no calcareous 

 matter — at the outside, not so much as 5 per cent, of the whole 

 mass. 



These, supposing them to possess 50 per cent, of clay, are 

 placed under the head of argillaceous soils, and are distinguished 

 into two orders, the first wholly destitute of lime, the second con- 

 taining less than 5 per cent, of that earth. Each of these orders 

 are then subdivided into three species, distinguished as rich, 

 poor, and intermediate, accordmg to the proportion of humus or 



* See Table I. 



