Some Causes of Unproductiveness in Soils. 129 



10. What kind of artificial manures are best suited to soils of 

 various composition ? 



11. Whether deep-ploughing or steam-cultivation is likely to 

 be useful as a means of developing the natural stores of plant- 

 food in the soil ? 



12. Whether the food of plants in the soil exists in an avail- 

 able or inert condition ? 



On all these points, chemical analysis can give reliable in- 

 formation, provided the results are rightly interpreted. The 

 best answer to a question does not necessarily convey useful 

 information to him who puts it : in the same way the most 

 careful analysis of a soil does not always give a satisfactory 

 •answer even on points which a chemist can pronounce with some 

 degree of assurance. A knowledge of chemistry does not put 

 the analyst of a soil into possession of that amount of acquaint- 

 ance with practical agriculture which is necessary to enable 

 him to interpret analytical results, and to recognise their bearing 

 upon purely practical matters. In the hands of a chemist per- 

 fectly ignorant of the first rudiments of practical agriculture, 

 soil-analyses, it appears to me, are about as useful as, without 

 comment, they are to a farmer who does not know the difference 

 between phosphate and sulphate of lime, or between potash and 

 soda. 



There was a time when I thought, with many other young 

 chemists, that soil-analyses would do everything for the farmer ; 

 three or four years of further experience and hard study rather 

 inclined me to side with those men who consider that they are of 

 no practical utility whatever ; and now, after eighteen years of 

 continued occupation with chemico-agricultural pursuits and, I 

 "trust, with more matured judgment, I have come to the conclusion 

 that there is hardly any subject so full of practical interest to the 

 farmer as that of the chemistry of soils, — the longer and more 

 sminutely soil-investigations are' carried on by competent men, 

 the greater, I am convinced, will be their practical utility. 



As pointed out in the preceding brief summary, already a 

 g^ood many practical questions may be put to the agricultural 

 chemist with propriety, which I should have hesitated or alto- 

 gether refused to answer three or four years ago. 



It remains for me now to mention briefly some points relating 

 to barrenness of soils on which chemical analysis cannot supply 

 any definite information. 



It cannot decide, amongst others : — 



1. Whether barrenness is caused by defective drainage. 



2. To what extent sterility is affected by a bad physical con- 

 dition of the land. 



VOL. I. — S.S. K 



