10 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



SOILS. 



SOILS may be defined as those portions of the upper stratum of the earth which contain 

 a mixture of mineral, vegetable, and animal substances in proportions suited to the 

 growth and nourishment of vegetation ; thus containing the food of plants, which 

 assimilate it in some mysterious way, and combining with it the requisite elements supplied 

 by the air, build up their structures, and in their turn furnish sustenance for man and the 

 lower animals. 



Since all soils are formed from the disintegration and decomposition of the rocks which 

 constitute the solid crust of the earth, together with a mixture of vegetable and animal 

 remains, they take their character from or are combined mainly of the elements of the 

 rocks from which they take their origin ; hence, the great diversity of soils. 



This relation is, of course, modified by circumstances, such as the prevalence of one or 

 other of the series, or the greater or less inclination of the strata by which the debris from 

 different sections are more or less mixed, and also by the action of the water in washing 

 certain portions of the surface free from some constituents of the soil, and carrying the 

 debris in a greater or less quantity to others. Hence, the great difference often found 

 between the fertility of the soil on a higher ground from which certain of its elements have 

 been washed, and that of the valley to which they have been conveyed. 



The names commonly applied to the different soils, have respect to their qualities ; thus 

 they are from their composition designated clay soils, loam, sand, gravel, chalk, peat, etc.; 

 or from their texture, in respect to which, those in which clay predominates are called heavy, 

 stiff, or impervious, and the others, light, friable, or porous. From the tendency of the clay soils 

 to retain moisture, they are often called wet and cold, and the other soils, for possessing the 

 opposite properties, dry and warm. According to their degree of fertility, they are also often 

 spoken of as rich or poor. 



The Origin of Soils. It is now a generally accepted theory, and one which does not 

 antagonize with the teachings of the Scriptures, that the greater portion of the soil which 

 covers the earth surface, and which is cultivated by man, was once a solid rock forming the 

 crust of the earth, and that long ages before man s creation and occupancy of the earth, this 

 rock was covered by sheets of ice many thousand feet in thickness in the form of glaciers, that 

 extended over nearly the entire continent; and that by the gradual melting and moving of this 

 vast mass, the rocky surface of the earth was ground, scoured, and pulverized, forming grooves 

 and scratches in the rocks that can even now easily be traced to the extent that the course of 

 the moving mass can be determined, which was from the north in a southerly direction ; and 

 also grinding, as if by an immense machine, the loose materials resting upon the surface of the 

 earth to a powder or paste, which forms the basis of the agricultural soil; that by climatic 

 changes, the vicissitudes of heat and cold, terrific storms and various chemical and mechanical 

 changes thus produced, the earth became fitted for the production of a lower order of vegeta 

 tion. These having matured, died, and decayed, were followed by those of another order, the 

 higher classes of plants appearing as the soil became enriched by the decay of previous vege 

 table organisms. During these ages it is supposed that the earth was constantly undergoing 

 changes of climate and vegetation, which latter became in time so dense and luxuriant as to 

 store up vast quantities of carbon taken from the air, and in this manner were formed the 

 immense beds of coal which are now found in various parts of the world; thus preparing the 

 earth for man s future necessities long before his creation. It will be found that soils vary 

 much in color; this is caused mainly from the nature of the different rocks from which they 

 are formed. This manner of soil formation, the mixing up of the ground-up fragments of 

 many kinds of rocks, have given great variety to soils both in formation and fertility, and 

 in many sections has prevented uniformity to the extent that often adjoining farms, or dif 

 ferent portions of the same farm, are very unlike in soil. There is, of course, a great differ. 



