16 



referred to the observation and experience of its intelligent citi- 

 zens and farmers who by no means treat the science of agricul- 

 ture with disrespect and do not reject what is called book-knowl- 

 edge on the subject as contained in the numerous periodicals and 

 other works devoted to agriculture which are so generally circula- 

 ted in their midst. 



It is not for a moment to be presumed that the intelligent farm- 

 ers of Vermont are wholly ignorant of the difference in the nature 

 and fertilizing qualities of the soils pervading more extended 

 tracts or ranges of the State and which have been chiefly produced 

 by the disintegration of the different kinds of rocks which under- 

 lie or are in the vicinity of the soils which have been formed from 

 simple minerals composing the rocks and consequently partake 

 more or less of their mineral and chemical characters. 



A general acquaintance with the different simple minerals and 

 their characters of which these extensive ranges of rock are com- 

 posed (and no new chemical analysis is required for this purpose,) 

 enables us to get a general but imperfect understanding of the 

 chemical composition of the soils which overlie or accompany them. 

 It may here be remarked that those ranges of rocks and their ac- 

 companying soils run nearly North and South, and hence their dif- 

 ference becomes very apparent in travelling East or West across 

 the State. This general difference in the chemical constituents 

 of the several ranges of soil is doubtless all that was intended to 

 be conveyed by President Hitchcock when he says that suggestions 

 in regard to the " prevailing soils of the State (for example 

 those from the limestone, mica slate, gneiss and argillaceous slate 

 regions,) may be of great value." * 



Aside from the considerations which these quotations embody 

 and enforce, it is proper to add that the commonly received opin- 

 ion that the soils of a country have originated from the rocks 

 immediately under them is somewhat erroneous. All soils are 

 derived from rocks broken or pulverized and so disseminated that 

 the ruins of one rock may be supposed to be mixed with the ruins 

 of a great many others. Every soil, therefore, may be regarded 

 as a mixture of many soils and may be supposed to have come 

 from many and often from wide spread localities. " If every par- 



*See Prof. Adams' "First Annual Report on the Geology of Vermont/' p. 68. 



