240 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



interest in soil science a number of new scientific journals arose. The 

 Internationale Mitteilungen fiir Bodenkunde was founded as the official 

 journal of the Agro-Geological Conferences, and, after the foundation of 

 the International Society of Soil Science, was continued as the Proceedings 

 of the International Society, while as a supplement a new journal, called 

 Soil Research, was also started. In America there has been published 

 since 1916 a journal called Soil Science. These journals, like the inter- 

 national meetings, did much to make known widely the new movements in 

 soil science. 



What'are these fresh views which we all sat at the feet of the Russians 

 to learn ? First of all I would like to point out that they are not revolu- 

 tionary, they are not an overturning of old knowledge but an extension and 

 restatement of it from a fresh viewpoint, and with additions. The Russians 

 have been largely cut off from Western Europe and America by linguistic, 

 geographical and political barriers, and, since the latter part of the 

 nineteenth century, have been thinking out the subject for themselves. 



They treat the soil as an independent natural object worthy of study 

 for its own sake and not merely as a useful medium in which to grow 

 crops, or as a subsidiary branch of Geology or Chemistry or any other 

 science. The branch of science which deals with soils they treat as an 

 independent branch, which they call Pedology. Many people in this 

 country and in America have now adopted this term and prefer to be 

 pedologists, a word you will not find in the dictionary, rather than soil 

 scientists. My own preference is for a term which is readily understood 

 by ordinary people, for I venture to think that it is very important that 

 science should have, as far as possible, the sympathy and understanding 

 of ordinary non-scientific people who are apt to be repelled by the un- 

 necessary and pedantic use of unknown terms. As that Nestor of Science 

 and master of virile English, Professor H. E. Armstrong, says, with his 

 usual emphasis, in a recent letter to Nature : ' The world of scientific 

 workers is clearly prepared to work in harmonious co-operation and even 

 to mix with the public on equal terms ; jargon, not language, alone forbids ; 

 this must be stamped out ; its use is due to conceit and to lack of thought ; 

 knowledge has to be made the common property of the world.' 



Next, the Russians insist that the soil is the natural product of a number 

 of soil-forming factors of which the most important is climate, and that its 

 nature is not determined by its geological origin. Their great primary 

 classification of soils is into a number of climatic zones. The most 

 notable feature in the whole Russian philosophy of soils is the insistence 

 on the importance of climate as a soil-forming factor. Climate plays the 

 central part in their system of soil classification. This recognition of 

 climate is not entirely a new idea. Hilgard in America, and others, had 

 already shown that climate has a great effect on the nature and composition 

 of soils. On the other hand, in this country we had been accustomed to 

 think of all soils as being somewhat similar to those of our temperate 

 humid climate and though brought into contact with the very different 

 soils of India, Australia, etc., had never critically examined the nature 

 and causes of the differences in the soils produced in these very different 

 climates. 



