Soils, their formation, properties, composition, and relations to climate and plant growth in the humid and arid regions

by Eugene W. Hilgard

PREFACE.

This volume was originally designed to serve as a text and reference book for the students attending the writer’s course on soils, given annually at the University of California, who complained of their inability to find in any connected treatise a large portion of the subject matter brought before them. As all these students had preliminary training in physics, chemistry and botany, no introductory chapters on these general subjects were necessary or contemplated; the more so as good elementary treatises embracing the needful preparation are now numerous.

As time progressed, however, outside demands for a book embodying the writer’s soil studies in the humid and arid regions, especially the latter, became so numerous and pressing that the scope of the work has gradually been much enlarged to conform to these demands; and this, rather than completeness of detail, when such detail can be found well given elsewhere, has been the guide in the necessary condensation of the whole. To give the entire subject matter full elucidation, would require several more volumes.

It may not be unnecessary to explain at the outset why and how this treatise deviates in many respects from previous publications on the same general topic. From boyhood up it has fallen to the writer’s lot to be almost continuously in more or less direct contact with the conditions and requirements of newly settled regions, as well as with those hardly yet invaded even by the pioneer farmer; where the question of cultural adaptation was yet undetermined or wholly in the dark. Being during his active life constantly called upon in his official capacity to give information and advice to pioneer farmers or intending settlers in regard to the merits and adaptations of virgin soils, the writer’s attention was naturally and forcibly directed toward soil investigation as a possible means of determining, beforehand, the general prospects and special features of agriculture in regions where actual experience was either non-existent or very brief and partial. In the pursuit of these studies he has been favored by exceptional opportunities, extending over a varied climatic area reaching on the south from the Gulf of Mexico to the Ohio, across to the Pacific coast, and to British Columbia on the north. That a systematic investigation of soils over so large an area, covering both humid and arid regions, should lead to some unexpected and novel results, is but natural; and it is the discussion of these results in connection with those obtained elsewhere, and with some of the prevailing views based thereon, that must serve as the justification for the present addition to an already well-stocked branch of literature.

From the very beginning of the scientific study of agriculture, the investigation of soils with a view to the à priori determination of their adaptation, permanent value, and best means of cultural improvement, has formed the subject of continuous effort. It is not easy to imagine a subject of higher direct importance to the physical welfare of mankind, whose very existence depends on the yearly returns drawn by cultural labor from the soil.

It is certainly remarkable that after all this long-continued effort, even the fundamental principles, and still more the methods by which the object in view is to be attained, are still so far in dispute that a unification of opinion in this respect is not yet in view; and a return to pure empiricism is from time to time brought forward to cut the Gordian knot.

While this state of things is primarily due to the intrinsic complexity and difficulty of the subject itself, it has unquestionably been materially aggravated by accidental, partly historic conditions. Foremost among these is the fact that until within recent times, soil studies have borne almost entirely on lands long cultivated and in most cases fertilized: thus changing them from their natural condition to a more or less artificial one, which obscures the natural relations of each soil to vegetation.

The importance of these relations is obvious, both from the theoretical and from the practical standpoint. From the former, it is clear that the native vegetation represents, within the climatic limits of the regional flora, the result of a secular process of adaptation of plants to climates and soils, by natural selection and the survival of the fittest. The natural floras and sylvas are thus the expression of secular, or rather, millennial experience, which if rightly interpreted must convey to the cultivator of the soil the same information that otherwise he must acquire by long and costly personal experience.

The general correctness of this axiom is almost self-evident; it is explicitly recognized in the universal practice of settlers in new regions, of selecting lands in accordance with the character of the forest growth thereon; it is even legally recognized by the valuation of lands upon the same basis, for purposes of assessment, as is practiced in a number of States.

The accuracy with which experienced farmers judge of the quality of timbered lands by their forest growth, has justly excited the wonder and envy of agricultural investigators, whose researches, based upon incomplete theoretical assumptions, failed to convey to them any such practical insight. It was doubtless this state of the case that led a distinguished writer on agriculture to remark, nearly half a century ago, that he “would rather trust an old farmer for his judgment of land than the best chemist alive.”[1]

It is certainly true that mere physico-chemical analyses, unassisted by other data, will frequently lead to a wholly erroneous estimate of a soil’s agricultural value, when applied to cultivated lands. But the matter assumes a very different aspect when, with the natural vegetation and the corresponding cultural experience as guides, we seek for the factors upon which the observed natural selection of plants depends, by the physical and chemical examination of the respective soils. It is further obvious that, these factors being once known, we shall be justified in applying them to those cases in which the guiding mark of native vegetation is absent, as the result of causes that have not materially altered the natural condition of the soil.

It is probable that, had agricultural science been first developed in regions where the external conditions permitted the carrying-out of such a course of investigation, instead of in the abnormally temperate, even and humid climate of middle Europe, with its long-cropped, worn fields, and very predominantly calcareous soils, the present condition of this science might differ not immaterially from that actually existing. As a matter of fact, it has attained its present state under very disadvantageous external conditions, which frequently necessitated a recourse to highly complex and laborious methods and artificial appliances, for the establishment and maintenance of the conditions which elsewhere might have been found abundantly realized in nature; thus permitting, by the multiplication of observations over extended and widely varied areas, the elimination and control of accidental errors of experiment and observation.

Just as in historical geology the subdivisions of formations observed and accepted in Europe formed for many years a procrustean bed upon which the facts observed elsewhere had to be stretched, so in the domain of soil physics and chemistry, and even in vegetable physiology, the observations made in the really exceptional climates and soils of middle Western Europe, have often erroneously been construed as constituting a general basis for unalterable deductions.

The rapid extension of civilization and the carrying of minute scientific research into other regions, now rendered possible by the improved means of communication, has shown the one-sidedness of some of the views prevailing heretofore, inasmuch as they are really applicable only to accidental and rather exceptional conditions.

It is therefore one object of this volume to present and discuss summarily the facts of physical and chemical soil constitution and functions with reference to the additional light afforded on the wider basis, embracing both the humid and the arid regions; of which the latter has, as such, received but scant and desultory attention thus far, to the detriment of both the work of the agricultural experiment stations and of agricultural practice. The book therefore includes the discussion both of the methods and results of direct physical, chemical and botanical soil investigation, as well as the subject matter relating to the origin, formation, classification and physical as well as chemical nature of soil, usually included in works on scientific agriculture.

In the presentation of these subjects, it has been the writer’s aim to reach both the students in his own classes and in the agricultural colleges generally, as well as the fast increasing class of farmers of both regions who are willing and even anxious to avail themselves of the results and principles of scientific investigation, without “shying off” from the new or unfamiliar words necessary to embody new ideas. It would seem to be time that the latter class, and more especially those constituting farmers’ clubs, should learn to understand and appreciate both the terms and methods of scientific reasoning, which are likely to form, increasingly, the subjects of instruction in the public schools. But in order to segregate to some extent the generally intelligible matter from that which requires more scientific preparation than can now be generally expected, it has been thought best to use in the text two kinds of type; the larger one embodying the matter presumed to be interesting and intelligible to the general reader, while the smaller type carries the illustrative detail and discussion which will be sought chiefly by the student.

As regards the chemical nomenclature used in this volume, the writer has not thought it advisable to follow the example set by some late authors in substituting for the well-known names of the bases and acids, those of the elements, and still less, those of the intangible ions. Any one who has taught classes in agricultural chemistry will have experienced the difficulty and loss of time unnecessarily incurred in the incessantly recurring transposition of terms, and complication of formulæ, serving no useful purpose save that of academic consistency. It is of at least doubtful utility to present to the farmer, e. g., the inflammable and dangerous elements phosphorus and potassium as prime factors in the success of his crops, and of healthy nutrition.

Inasmuch as all the elements are presented to and contained in the plant in compounds only, and these compounds are themselves, in the dilute solutions used by plants, known to be largely dissociated into their basic and acid groups, it seems to be most natural to present them under the corresponding, even if not absolutely theoretically correct names of acids and bases, to which the farmer and the trade have been accustomed for half a century. Upon these considerations the long-used designations of potash, soda, lime, phosphoric, sulfuric, nitric and other acids and bases have been retained in this volume, adding the chemical formula where, as in analytical statements, a doubt as to their meaning might arise. Assuredly, the diffusion of scientific knowledge should not be needlessly hindered by the adoption of a pedantic mode of presentation.

The great breadth of the subject of this volume has rendered inadvisable any extended bibliography, such as it has of late become customary to add to works of this kind. References have therefore been restricted to publications specially discussed, and to such as are not widely known on account of limited circulation.

The author’s warmest acknowledgments are due to Professor R. H. Loughridge, of the University of California, for efficient and sympathetic assistance, both in the revision of the manuscript, and active personal help in the preparation of the illustrations. Without his coöperation the preparation and publication of the volume would have been much longer delayed.

Acknowledgments are also due for helpful suggestions and criticism to Professors L. H. Bailey, of Cornell University, F. H. King, of Wisconsin, and Jacques Loeb of the University of California.

E. W. HILGARD.

Berkeley, California,
November 15, 1905.