SOIL AND SITUATION. 93 



New soils are to be preferred to those that have long 

 been in cultivation ; for it is extremely difficult to supply 

 artificially to worn-out soils the lucking materials, in a 

 form so perfectly adapted to the wants of plants, as that 

 which they originally possessed. I am well aware that 

 some agricultural chemists have endeavored to impress 

 upon the minds of cultivators the importance of analyz- 

 ing the soil, in order to ascertain what particular ingre- 

 dients it may need, or what it may possess in too great 

 an abundance to produce any particular crop or plant in 

 perfection. And while I admit that chemists may some- 

 times determine when there is an excess of any particu- 

 lar constituent (which practical men will often do by 

 merely looking at it), I have yet to learn that analytical 

 chemists can tell how little of any particular ingredient 

 is needed for any particular crop. An acre contains 

 43,560 square feet of surface, and if we call the soil a 

 foot deep (and there are few plants that do not penetrate 

 deeper than this), then there will be that number of 

 cubic feet. A cube foot of ordinary soil will weigh from. 

 75 to 100 pounds we will call it 80 pounds this gives 

 3,484,800 as the weight of an acre of soil one foot deep. 

 There are circumstances of frequent occurrence when a 

 farmer, by adding 100 pounds of some particular mate- 

 rial to an acre of grain, will increase the crop twenty-five 

 per cent. And certainly it is not reasonable to suppose, 

 nor do I think that any theorist will maintain, that it is 

 among the possibilities of chemical science to detect even 

 a trace of 100 pounds of a substance in 3,484,800, yet 

 plants will detect it. 



I make these remarks because I have seen men, 

 when looking for a situation on which to plant a vine- 

 yard, who were very particular to have the soil analyzed 

 by some celebrated chemist before they would purchase 

 or plant. I do not wish to depreciate the science of 

 agricultural chemistry, for it has been one of the power- 



