WAGES 23 



Glacial Drift — 



A later deposit, consists of gravel and sand, and is in- 

 different land. 



Brick Earth — 



Yields a loamy soil of exceptional fertility and of great 

 natural suitability of texture. 



Recent Formations. 



Peat- 

 Is composed of decayed, or partly decayed, mosses, heaths, 

 &c. It is of no use for agriculture till drained, clayed, 

 limed, &c. 



Alluvium — 



Occurs on the flats along the sides of water. It is made 

 up of a mixture of washings from other soils, and is fertile 

 enough ; but the trouble of this land is its wetness and 

 the difficulty of draining it. 



Of the rocks with which the surface of the earth was 

 covered those belonging to the later formations have 

 become soft under atmospheric exposure — ' weathered ' — 

 while the older formations usually remain hard and have 

 resisted the influence of climate. They are therefore 

 useless for sustaining human life. On the other hand, 

 the formations which ' weather ' become usually clay 

 or sand. Sandy soils are poor, being unable to retain 

 moisture or matter for plants, and in a natural state 

 they are covered with a scanty, coarse, useless vegeta- 

 tion. Clay possesses the opposite defect : it is too 

 retentive of moisture, and naturally supports only grass 

 and forest trees. 



Of the twenty-three formations noticed in the table 

 there are but three which constitute soils at once friable, 

 capable of holding moisture and matter, and yet not 

 too cohesive. These are the soils nafurally suited for 

 the cultivation of food plants. In the United Kingdom 

 they amount in extent roughly to an eighth of the total 

 land surface. 



Clays and sands, however, lend themselves in varying 

 degrees to the work of amelioration. A further eighth 



