158 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 
mentioned series, an increase with regard to lime and potash, a 
decrease in phosphoric oxide. This change proceeds more or less 
regularly up to the village of Heidelberg, but after that the lime 
undergoes a sudden diminution from ‘5 to between ‘1 and ‘2 per 
cent., and remains comparatively uniform along the rest of the line; 
the potash continues to increase more and more, and the phosphates 
also show a sudden augmentation and remain, like the lime, more or 
less uniform thereafter. In popular language we may say that the 
soils, starting the series with a fair amount of phosphoric oxide, 
though poor in lime and not much better in potash, on reaching 
the eastern part of the Swellendam Division, become poorer than 
ever in the first-named constituent, although they show a good 
amount of lime and a fair quantity of potash. Across the river the 
lime diminishes and the phosphoric oxide increases, but both still 
remain fair throughout, while the potash attains to a normal con- 
dition and afterwards becomes in parts really rich, notably in the 
neighbourhood of the granite formation north of Mossel Bay. 
Only 45 soils out of the entire series of 212 examined show normal 
proportions of lime; the remaining 167 cannot be said to be more 
than fairly well supplied, and of these 86 are decidedly poor. With 
regard to phosphoric oxide the case is even worse; here no less than 
124 out of the 212 soils must be classed as poor, and of the whole 
range of samples only 15—that is to say, less than 8 per cent.— 
reach the normal standard. As to potash, conditions are rather 
more satisfactory ; 57 samples show normal amounts, and only 53 
are actually poor. These results show that, as far as my investi- 
gations have gone, my surmise of ten years ago was fairly correct ; 
the great want of most of our soils is phosphatic material, and, next 
to that, lime. And all the while, for years in succession, we have 
continued exporting bones by hundreds of tons, and bones consist 
mainly of phosphate of lime and thus supply the very essential most 
lacking in our soils. Until a few years ago judicious fertilising was 
all but absolutely unknown in this Colony; the principle on which 
manuring was carried on may be instanced by the following: In one 
of the districts traversed I found that the practice was to manipulate 
with farmyard manure the lands adjacent to the homestead, guano 
being reserved for those at greater distances or in less accessible 
situations—hillsides, for instance. Here there was no inquiry after 
the needs of the soil and the fitness of the fertiliser to supply those 
needs ; it was all a question of which is the easier to employ. There 
is an immense amount of education to be done in this respect, and 
from its very nature and the country’s circumstances it is an educa- 
tion that takes time. More rational inquiry is now being made after 
