E. W. Hilgard—Soil Analyses and their Utility. 443 
The ahs is important; but that with a proper local 
knowledge these allowances can be made, and that in most 
takes the hair off the feet of cattle. Ergo, every “sticky” clay 
soil in the State is called, considered, and treated as a “prairie” 
soil, especially if the hardened clods adhering above the hoofs 
of cattle should carry the hair with them. If such soil is un- 
thrifty, and rusts eotton, it is because “ there is too much lime 
in it,” which “scalds” the seedlings. In matter of fact, most 
of these soils are notably deficient in lime, so as to 
directly and immediately benefited by its application wherever 
mera ; : a 
here acts, probably, as much chemically as physically ; the clay 
bei ts A Phile the physical 
defects of these soils are doubtless the main cause of the crop 
failures, yet analysis has suggested a remedy which relieves, 
for the time being, from the necessity of the more costly im- 
‘provements; lime being comparatively easy of access. 
Analogous cases are far from infrequent, both in this and in 
the adjoining States; and I have been led to attach special im 
portance to the determination of time in soils, from the (not 
unexpected) rule which seems to hold good very generally, 
viz., that, f ribus, the thriftiness of a soil is sensibly 
dependent upon the amount of lime it contains ; while, at the 
same time, in the usual mode of culture without return to the 
soil, the duration of fertility is correspondingly diminished, 
and its cessation is very abrupt wherever much lime is present. 
It may be said that, after all, this is but what, from data 
already Saws might have been expected. Granted ; then, 
@ fortiori, soil analysis, involving the determination of lime, 
* See, for example, the article “Heavy Flatwoods Soil,” in my Miss. Rep. _ 
1860, pp. 276, 279. 
