Volume VII 



APRIL, 1916 



Part IV 



THE S0IL8 AND CROPS OF THE MARKET- 

 GARDEN DISTRICT OF BIGGLESWADE. 



By THEODORE RIGG, B.A., St John's College. 

 {School of Agriculture, Cambridge.) 



Introduction. 



Within the last two or three years the attention of the agricultural 

 world has been directed to the importance of the correlation of the 

 chemical and physical properties of soils with the crops and systems 

 of agriculture which farmers have found most suitable to them. 



By such correlations many facts of supreme interest have been 

 ehcited. The American Bureau of Soils have been able to enumerate 

 the characteristics and properties of various soil formations which render 

 them suitable for some particular crop. They have been able to suggest 

 new and more profitable crops as likely to be suitable for soils which 

 have not hitherto grown them. They have been able to explain causes 

 of fertility and infertility which have a practicable bearing not only 

 on the agriculture of their own country but of the whole world. 



Hall and Russell^ were similarly able to demonstrate the value of 

 a soil and crop survey to agriculture as a whole, and particularly to 

 that of the district under their investigation. As a result of their 

 work, they were able to give much advice on the improvement of methods 

 of agriculture, mixtures of artificial manures suitable for the crops on 

 each soil formation, the value of liming, etc. 



Perhaps as a work of reference, a soil survey is of the greatest and 

 most permanent value, for if the soils of a district have been classified 

 and their properties stated in terms of mechanical and chemical analyses 

 it becomes possible to compare abnormal soils with the normal soil 

 type and to detect more readily the cause of its abnormahty. 



' Hall and Russell, Agriculture and Soils of Kent. Surrey and Si'ssrr. 

 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, 1911. 



Journ. of Agric. Sol. vu 



Published by 



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