CHA PRTE EY Lit. 
THE RELATIVE VALUE OF DIFFERENT SOILS IN SUGAR 
PRODUCTION. 
The Soil not merely a Repository of the Mineral Food of Plants— 
Theory alone not a safe Guide in estimating the Value of Soils 
for different Purposes—Texture and Physical Properties of Soils 
—tThe Peculiar Qualities, physical and chemical, of Lands which 
Experience has proved to be the best adapted to this Cane—The 
‘Bluff Lands” of the Missouri and Mississippi Valleys—Sugar 
Production in the West and in Louisiana—Soils of the Ohio Ter- 
races. 
ALTHOUGH it is true that in order to preserve the exist- 
ence of every plant in its normal condition, its ash-con- 
stituents must be found in the soil in which it grows, it 
would be false to presume that to insure fertility, it will be 
necessary only to preserve in the soil a constant supply of 
each ingredient detected by analysis in the ash of the 
plant. Science, as yet, has given no satisfactory explana- 
tion of the nature of those transformations by which mineral 
substances in the soil are made to contribute to the life of 
vegetation. Within the soil, as well as in the organic struc- 
ture, many subtle combinations are known to be formed 
which the chemist is unable to repeat in the laboratory. 
Unexpected results, incapable of explanation according to 
any known principles, are often developed, and hence 
the necessity of admitting no inferences in agriculture as 
facts which have not been referred to the test of experience 
for confirmation. The relative value of different soils for 
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