SOIL ANALYSES 



85 



is reached, the clay attains a proportion of 45 per cent., and 

 comparatively little coarse sand is left. 



At the lower station, E, the soil is a heavy clay throughout, 

 the actual proportion of clay in it varying from 41 to 53 per 

 cent., and it presents the unusual feature of there being a larger 

 proportion of fine particles in the top 9 inches than in the second 

 9 inches, this probably being the result of flooding, as indicated 

 above. That the soil in the two portions of the ground is funda- 

 mentally of the same character, modified only in the surface 

 layers, is shown by the close similarity of composition of the 

 third 9 inches. 



The Millbrook soil, it will be seen, is of a very sandy nature, 

 the coarse sand in it amounting to over 70 per cent., and the 

 proportion of finer particles being very small. 



The chemical analyses of the soils, as given in the second 

 table, do not indicate any marked sterility as regards the Mill- 

 brook soil; the phosphoric acid and nitrogen in it comparing 

 well with that in the Ridgmont soil, and the potash alone being 

 somewhat deficient. In the lower depths a deficiency of nitrogen 

 in the Millbrook soil becomes more marked, but the poverty of 

 this soil is not apparent till the results of the determination of 

 the available food-materials in it are considered ; these are 

 given, approximately, at any rate, by the citric acid method of 

 analysis, and are contrasted below with the total amounts of 

 food materials, as given by the hydrochloric acid method in 

 the previous table. 



TOTAL AND AVAILABLE PLANT-FOODS 



FIRST NINE INCHES 



Such poverty as the Millbrook soil exhibits is evidently due to 

 a lack of potash, and not to a lack of phosphoric acid, for the 

 amount of this latter which is present in an available form, is 

 considerably greater than in the Ridgmont soil : the available 

 potash, however, is only one-fourth of that in the Ridgmont 



