RECOGNITION OF THE CHARACTER OF SOILS. 



525 



can precedents, can now be only conjectured. Certain it is 

 that the European definition of calcareous soils remains to the 

 present day a wholly different one from that stated above; 

 and from this have arisen the greater part of the doubts and 

 differences of opinions among European botanists as to the 

 classification of plants in relation to calcareous soils. Two 

 per cent, of lime (equivalent to nearly double the amount of 

 carbonate) is the prevailing European postulate for a cal- 

 careous soil. Some go so far as to postulate effervescence 

 with acids, requiring about 5/0 of the carbonate. 



Predominance of Calcareous Formations in Europe. It 

 is not generally recognized even among geologists how 

 abnormally predominant are limestone formations in Europe. 

 In all works on European agriculture we find the " lime 

 sand " mentioned as a normal ingredient of soils, specially 

 provided for (or against) in the operations of soil exami- 

 nation. Its presence is the rule, its absence the exception. 

 Soils as poor in lime as are those of the long-leaf and short- 

 leaf pine regions of the United States, are there very excep- 

 tional and ( like the " Haideboden " of northern Germany) 

 have long remained almost uncultivated. Calcareous soils 

 being the rule in the regions of intense culture, the ideas 

 of both agriculturists and agricultural chemists have in 

 Europe, in the main, been based upon them as normal soils; 

 so that instead of comparing calcareous, and non-calcareous 

 soils properly speaking /. e., such as would not bear native 

 lime-vegetation the majority of comparisons has actually 

 been made between soils which, in the American sense, were 

 all or chiefly within the calcareous class. It is characteristic 

 of this state of things that the injuriousness of an e.vccss of 

 lime is among the foremost themes of European (especially 

 French and English ) agricultural writers, as against the bene- 

 ficent effects prominently assigned to lime in America. Xo 

 such popular saying as that "a lime country is a rich coun- 

 try" exists in Europe; on the contrary, we constantly hear, 

 and see in books, the mention of " poor chalk lands." and in 

 France especially the deleterious effects of excess of lime upon 

 crops is the theme of remark. Excess of lime in their marly 

 lands has been the despair of French vintners, and Yiala was 

 specially sent to America to find some vine to serve as a 



