4O TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. 



ful clouds of dust that blew in the car-windows. Here 

 is a soil probably almost wholly inorganic. It contains 

 only sand, and it is so loose that no plants can find 

 a footing in it. If by chance seeds fall there, as no 

 doubt they do every year, they cannot grow ; because 

 the first dry wind pulls them up by the roots, and car- 

 ries them away to perish, or the drifting sand* over- 

 whelms them, and they are suffocated. Besides this, 

 the rains that fall there soak quickly away through the 

 sand, and the plants die for the want of water. If you 

 never chance to pass this curious place in Connecticut, 

 look about your own home, examine the sloping sides 

 of railroad-cuttings through sandy or gravelly hills, and 

 see if you cannot find examples of a soil composed 

 almost wholly of inorganic material like sand. Make 

 notes of the color and general character of such 

 soils. 



In Orange County, N.Y., there is a great boggy tract 

 called the Chester Meadows. Perhaps long ago it 

 was a lake, and in time it was completely filled up by 

 mosses and water-plants. These in dying left here a 

 curious soft dark soil. Perhaps we should not call it 

 a true soil ; for it is composed of only organic matter, 

 with a very small portion of sand or inorganic matter. 

 It is a famous place for growing onions, yet it has its 

 disadvantages; for, being very light and loose, the 

 plants do not get a firm hold in the ground, and it has 

 happened that in a gale of wind a whole crop of onions 

 has been torn up, and blown away out of sight. The 

 plants, finding no sand or heavy material in the soil, 



