BOIL AND SITDATION.. 91 



the mechanical texture of the soil has more to do with suc- 

 cess or failure than do the ingredients it contains. 



A moderately loose and friable soil, whether it he loam, 

 sand, gravel, or the dehris of rocky hillsides, especially if of 

 a calcareous nature, are to be chosen in preference to clay 

 or muck. These latter may be somewhat reclaimed and 

 made available by underdraining, trenching, etc., yet in a 

 majority of cases they prove unsatisfactory in the end. 



The soils in many portions of the Western States, and in 

 some portions of the others that have but recently been 

 brought under cultivation, need no addition of fertilizing 

 materials. 



New soils are to be preferred to those that have long 

 been in cultivation ; for it is extremely difficult to supply 

 artificially to worn-out soils the lacking materials in a form 

 so perfectly adapted to the wants of plants as that which 

 they originally possessed. I am well aware that some 

 agricultural chemists have endeavored to impress upon the 

 minds of cultivators the importance of analyzing the soD, 

 in order to ascertain what particular ingredients it may 

 need, or what it may possess in too great an abundance to 

 produce any particular crop or plant in perfection. And 

 while I admit that chemists may sometimes determine 

 when there is an excess of any particular constituent 

 (which practical men wiU often do by merely looking at 

 it), I have yet to learn that analytical chemists can tell how 

 little of any particular ingredient is needed for any partic- 

 ular crop. An acre contains 43,560 square feet of surface, 

 and if we caE the soil a foot deep (and there are few plants 

 that do not penetrate deeper than this), then there will be 

 that number of cubic feet. A cube foot of ordinary soil 

 will weigh from 75 to 100 pounds — we will call it 80 

 pounds — this gives 3,484,800 as the weight of an acre of 

 soil one foot deep. There are circumstances of frequent 

 occurrence when a farmer, by adding 100 pounds of some 

 particular material to an acre of grain, will increase the 



