320 Kansas Academy of Science. 



As a geologist he studies the soils of his several fields and 

 learns that the clay is derived from an underlying or near-by 

 clay rock or shale (sometimes wrongly called soapstone), or 

 has been brought from a far-away shale bed by some stream 

 at flood from recent rains. Should our geologist-farmer live in 

 northeastern Kansas instead of in Lyon county, he soon learns 

 that a glacier shoved his soil from some near or far deposit to 

 the north. He also learns that the clay of his soils may be the 

 residuum of a bed of limestone. He remembers, furthermore, 

 that he was taught when he studied geology that all the clay 

 of eastern Kansas came originally from the feldspar of decay- 

 ing granite in the Ozarks of Missouri or in the Arbuckle and 

 Wichita mountains of Oklahoma, and that this is the reason 

 that there is so much alkali in clay soils. (White alkali is 

 chiefly sulphate of potash or soda, and black alkali is composed 

 principally of carbonate of soda or potash.) In a similar way, 

 sand is derived from sandstone, and this from the quartz of 

 granite ; but humus comes to the soil only through slow decay 

 of plants and animals. 



Then each in turn and all together the farmer-scientist 

 brings to bear on the right solution of the many farm problems 

 all the knowledge gained by the chemist, the physicist, the 

 physiologist, the botanist and the zoologist, and thus by myriad 

 observations, experiments and conferences establishes con- 

 clusions of the highest vahdity, conclusions of far higher 

 validity than those reached through tradition and casual ob- 

 servation. 



Having stated his reasons for believing that the scientist- 

 farmer is far better equipped with general principles of agri- 

 culture, gained by the inductive method of science, and why, 

 when thus equipped, he can do with far greater certainty all 

 classes of farm work, the writer desires next to give very 

 briefly, for purposes of illustration, some of his own conclu- 

 sions respecting farm soils and crops, assuming for the time 

 being that he is a scientist and has been a farmer. 



SOILS : QUALITIES AND USES. 



1. Soil Body. — This is soil framework only. 



a. Clay: Particles one five-thousandth to one two hundred fifty- 



thousandth of an inch in diameter. Clay is firm, slow and 

 sticky. 



b. Silt: Intermediate between clay and sand. 



