2 
Land Valuing. 
how mucli greater is the importance of some of these considerations 
than of others ; and I Avish, therefore, to draw attention to those 
differences which mainly influence the quality of land. The 
quality of a soil may be said primarily to depend on its me- 
chanical composition and depth. Land must always remain 
poor so long as there is but a very shallow surface-soil — the 
compact uncultivated subsoil coming nearly to the top, whether 
it be a thin-skinned clay, a thin gravel, or a sharp sand. So in 
the case of two soils of similar texture, that which has the greatest 
depth will be the most fertile. All fertile soils are composed of 
a mixture of clay, lime and sand, forming, when mixed in good 
proportions, a sandy loam or clay loam, as the case may be ; 
and when one element is greatly in excess, a sharp gravel or 
sand, a stiff clay or a tenacious marl ; or where the lime is 
almost absent, the weak clay soils, so characteristic of the lower 
silurian slate-rocks. 
There is no doubt that the other substances contained in a soil 
also have their effect, and in a few cases, where a noxious sub- 
stance is present, or where vegetable matter largely exists, this 
influence is considerable ; but in these cases indirect indications 
of the state of the case are not wanting — for in the former the 
stunted trees and unhealthy vegetation, and in the latter the dark 
colour of the soil, tell their own tale. 
Most soils naturally contain a small quantity of phosphate of 
lime, or other fertilising agents ; but such supplies are liable to 
exhaustion, and, as in a country like England, where the land 
has been long cultivated, we depend to a great extent upon the air 
and upon the manure applied for the food of plants, the great 
essential to fertility is a soil of sufficient depth, having such a 
mechanical texture as is best adapted for a good seed-bed, resting 
on a subsoil which, whilst providing good drainage, does not allow 
the manure applied to pass downward too quickly. Thus some of 
our primest grazing lands have a stiff (almost a clay) soil, resting 
on a bed of gravel. If the gravel came near to the surface, the 
land would be poor and hungry ; if the subsoil were stifl^ the 
land would be wet and cold. 
A knowledge of the geological formation on which the land is 
situate will go far towards enabling the valuer to allow for dif- 
ferences in the chemical composition of apparently similar soils ; 
for 1 have observed a marked difference in the fertility of soils of 
similar texture, which lay on different formations, maintaining 
itself even in distant counties. Thus it will be found that soils 
resting on the lower oolite or lias formations are slightly more- 
fertile than similar ones on the middle oolite (or indeed on 
almost any other formation), the difference between the lias and 
Oxford clays being particularly observable. 
