CONTENTS. XV 



Inorganic plant-food in physical and chemical combination. 

 Inorganic plant-food necrssary in physical combination 

 for the immediate requirements of the soil, in chemical 

 combination for its lasting fertility. A sufficient quantity 

 of plant-food in the first state indispensable for the purposes 

 of husbandry. Fallowing. Its meaning, purport, and 

 action upon the component parts of the soil. An analysis 

 of a soil should exhibit the physical condition as well as 

 the chemical composition of its igredients. Necessary 

 details of a soil analysis to render it useful and interpretable 

 for the purposes of agriculture. Surface and subsoils of 

 the Concan. Their relative bearing power. Subsoils, at 

 first sterile, become fertile. The subsoil of India contains 

 sufficient inorganic plant-food to make it, if judiciously 

 treated, once more " the Garden of the East." Surface 

 and subsoils of Salsette. Difference of chemical compo- 

 sition. The improvement of the soil by heat, moisture, and 

 atmospheric air. A knowledge of the condition of his 

 soil necessary to the farmer. The means to change the 

 inorganic plant-food from the unassimilable to the assimi- 

 lable state. The mechanical operations of agriculture.- 

 Their meaning and purport. The results depend upon the 

 amount of inorganic plant-food present. The help of 

 science to ascertain what is wanted. Drainage. The use 

 of manures to aid the mechanical operations of agriculture. 

 Lime. Common salt, saltpetre, ammonia. Colonel 

 Corbett adding to the evidence of the exhausted nature of 

 India's soil. Irrigation, with constant cropping, hastens the 

 impoverishment of the soil : wheat-lands degenerate into 

 rice-lands, rice-lands are abandoned to reeds and rushes. 

 Irrigation will impoverish the soil unless a different system of 

 cultivation is adopted, and the balance of inorganic plant- 

 food more carefully preserved. The Oriental on irriga- 

 tion-works in India, and manures. The natural state of the 

 plant compared with its artificial or cultivated state. The 

 difference between soils bearing a natural growth of plants 

 and those under cultivation by mankind. The enrichment 

 of the one and the impoverishment of the other 106 



