46 THE OLIVER PLOW BOOK 



between the thumb and finger a granular, raw feeling is 

 distinctly noticeable. It has neither the rough, gritty 

 feeling of the sand nor the smooth, slippery feeling of 

 the clay. A ball of dry loam is porous while a ball of 

 dry clay is compact. Loam crumbles readily, making 

 it easy to plow and cultivate. It dries out faster than 

 clay, and slower than sandy soils. It does not form 

 hard, unbreakable clods like clay, nor does it crumble so 

 easily as sand. It forms into a mellow, compact seed 

 bed, and gives the farmer more return for poor cultiva- 

 tion than any other soil. These characteristics of loam 

 undoubtedly give rise to the statement that anyone can 

 throw seed into the ground and it will grow, meaning, of 

 course, that anyone can farm. . 



The expression, clay loam, means that the clay pre- 

 dominates in the composition, and sandy loam means 

 that the sand predominates in the composition, there- 

 fore, the handling of a loamy soil must be more inclined 

 towards the soil which predominates. That is, a clay 

 loam soil should be handled more like a clay soil and a 

 sandy loam should be treated more like sandy soil. 

 Clay loam is much easier to plow and cultivate than 

 clay because the sand in the loam breaks up the com- 

 pact relationship between the clay particles. It has 

 much the same texture as clay soil. It can be worked 

 to better advantage than clay soil when wet, although 

 not successfully. It forms a more compact and mellow 

 s*eed bed. The cloddy formation is less predominant 

 than in clay. It has the clay characteristics of cracking 

 and drying out and must be handled in such a way as to 

 prevent this. 



Sandy loam can be told very readily by its grain. 

 Sometimes the particles are large enough to be easily 



