INFORMATION FOR EMIGRANTSw 25- 



parin {''Terres Arables,'" '^jne. ed., p. 33) says: "It must not be forgotteiT' 

 that the nutritive power of a soil, other things being equal, is in direct, 

 proportion to the fineness of the particles which compose it;" so much 

 so, indeed, that when a soil is to be chemically analyzed, only the "fine 

 earth," or that portion which will pass through a sieve having ten wires 

 to the centimetre, is taken for the analysis, the coarser part being con- 

 sidered practically inert as to plant nourishment — only a skeleton, which 

 is not to be taken into account when estimating the fertility of a soil; 

 and this is especially true when the coarser particles are of quartz, or- 

 some hard silicate not readily to be disintegrated or decomposed by the 

 ordinary process of weathering, or which do not. contain any essential 

 element of plant nourishment. 



In this important particular our Kentucky soils are more valuable 

 than the great body of those of the great Northwest: that not only are 

 their constituent particles very minutely divided, but even these, fine 

 enough to pass through the meshes of the finest sieve above described, 

 are not entirely fine sand of silica, but contain a considerable propor- 

 tion of fine particles of decomposable silicates, which in the process of 

 weathering help to keep up the supply of essential plant food, and make- 

 the soils very durable. In some of his analyses of Kentucky soils, the 

 writer has found as much as 2.9 per cent, of potash in the fine siliciousf 

 residue of a soil which was left after a week's digestion in diluted 

 chlorohydric acid, but which would gradually be unlocked and made, 

 available for plant growth under the influence of time and the atmos- 

 pheric agencies. 



The late Dr. David D. Owen, former Director of the Kentucky Geo- 

 logical Survey, placed in the writer's possession a series of samples of 

 soils which he had collected during his celebrated exploration of the 

 great Northwestern Territory for the United States Government in, 

 1847— '50; some of which the writer analyzed, giving the results in 

 Vol. IV, O. S., Kentucky Geological Reports. These soils, character- 

 istic of the best of this great prairie region, are mostly very dark; 

 colored, sometimes almost black, from the presence of a large propor- 

 tion of organic matter, some of which is peaty or semi-bituminous — of 

 little value for plant food — derived from the decomposing remains of 

 many successive growths of grasses or aquatic plants in recent or former 

 ages; but in them all, and in some of them in very large proportion, 

 are visible grains of quartzose sand, reducing materially the quantity of 

 "fine earth," and, consequently, the durability of these soils. While- 

 the organic matters, the dark vegetable mould, give to such soils great 

 fertility at first, and cultivation is facilitated by the sandy ingredient, 

 the durability of such soils, without the aid of artificial fertilizers, would 

 be much less than that of our best Kentucky soils, which contain no 

 coarse sand, but are altogether "fine earth," made up partly of decom- 

 posable silicates. By reliable accounts the older prairie farmers find it 

 necessary even now to resort to artificial fertilizers, while on the best 

 lands of Kentucky cropping for a hundred years has not yet brought: 

 about this necessity, nor will it perhaps for hundreds of years more, 

 where the soil rests on a decomposable limestone which annually gives. 



