WET AND DRY SOILS 131 



superfluous water. The character of any soil will also be 

 much affected by its position, whether on a hill side, or in 

 a valley receiving the drainage of higher land. The height 

 of the water level in the subsoil is also another condition 

 which may entirely alter the agricultural character of the 

 land. 



The most suitable character for a soil must depend on the 

 characters of the climate and situation in which it is placed, 

 and the crops it is desired to grow ; properties of the greatest 

 value under one set of conditions, may be those producing 

 most evil under contrary circumstances. A coarse sand may 

 be a very poor soil under arable culture, but it would answer 

 admirably for sewage irrigation, and would also in time 

 produce a good pine forest. Well supplied with manure it 

 might make excellent early market-garden land. A clay 

 that could only be laid down in grass with an annual rain- 

 fall of forty inches, might be used with great advantage for 

 arable culture where the rainfall is only twenty-five inches. 

 A marsh which would be useless in England, would in India 

 produce luxuriant crops of rice. The kind of agriculture 

 which can be most usefully adopted must indeed always 

 depend on the special conditions of the locality. In the 

 climate of England, the soils yielding the most favourable 

 .supply of water for arable culture are loams, alluvial silts, 

 and very fine sands containing some humus ; such soils are 

 capable when deep of storing much water, while at the same 

 time they allow of a free movement of water within them, 

 and drain sufficiently speedily to favour a large development 

 of root. 



Amelioration of the Physical Properties of Soil. Although 

 the natural conditions of soil and climate have always a 



