No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 547 



AGRICULTUKAL GEOLOGY 



By W. H. STOUT, Agricultural Geologist 



SOIL 



Soil is defined as the upper stratum of tlie earth, the mold or that 

 compound substance which furnishes nutriment to plants, or which 

 is particularly adapted to support and nourish them. 



There is much concern of late regarding our natural resources 

 and their preservation. Forests, streams and minerals appear 

 to be considered the most valuable from a business point of view, 

 and while all are essential to civilization as necessities, they are 

 only secondary in importance to the human race. 



The soil is our most precious inheritance, deserving more care 

 and consideration than is commonly bestowed upon it. It has taken 

 ages of time and ceaseless work of natural forces, phj'sical and chemi- 

 cal, to create the first few feet of arable soil, that is of any value in 

 the art of Agriculture. It is comparatively only a short time 

 since the country was settled by the white race, yet soil depletion to 

 the point of exhaustion is evident where the early settlers first lo- 

 cated. 



Waste and destruction follow in the wake of civilization. Before 

 the advent of the Europeans, the demand upon soil resources was 

 limited. The tribes then in possession lived a primitive life upon 

 natural resources of game, fish, fruit and vegetables, with a little 

 corn and beans cultivated, along with some tobacco, in a limited 

 way in some localities. 



There are periods in the history of every country when agriculture 

 becomes more urgent, and this country has arrived at, or is approach- 

 ing a time when the supply of food products will not be sufficient 

 to maintain an increasing population. 



This is, however, not a matter of immediate concern but the ad- 

 monition is timely, with the knowledge that poverty, ignorance and 

 superstition follow the decline of prosperity, which is ever meas- 

 ured by the abundance of soil products, and such products are con- 

 tingent upon the fertility and texture of the soil. 



Some of the one-time most productive and wealthy countries 

 known in history, where art, science, education and religion had 

 their birth-places, have lost their identity and are divided among and 

 are under the dominion of German, British, French and 

 American rule. China is the only extensive territory that 

 has maintained its independent existence for a long period. 

 There is, however, much poverty and suffering in that empire, where 

 thousands of the inhabitants are starving at times, and the revolution 

 now in progress is attributed to the suffering of the laboring class. 



The Chinese have lived a long time upon the products of the 

 country, consuming at home what was produced, and caring re- 

 ligiously for all wastes and fertilizers available. Subsisting upon 

 a plain and meagre diet that does not appeal to Europeans, the 



