Composition of Soil.—If we examine a mass of ordinary loam carefully, we find that it is composed of numerous particles of varying size and weight. Between these particles, if the soil is not caked and hard packed, we can find tiny spaces. In well-tilled soil these spaces are constantly being formed and enlarged. They allow air and water to penetrate the soil. If we examine soil under the microscope, we find considerable water clinging to the soil particles and forming a delicate film around each particle. In this manner most of the water is held in the soil.
This picture shows how the forests help to cover the inorganic soil with an organic coating. Explain how.
How Water is held in Soil.—To understand what comes in with the soil water, it will be necessary to find out a little more about soil. Scientists who have made the subject of the composition of the earth a study, tell us that once upon a time at least a part of the earth was molten. Later, it cooled into solid rock. Soil making began when the ice and frost, working alternately with the heat, chipped off pieces of rock. These pieces in time became ground into fragments by action of ice, glaciers, running water, or the atmosphere. This process is called weathering. Weathering is aided by oxidation. A glance at almost any crumbling stones will convince you of this, because of the yellow oxide of iron (rust) disclosed. So by slow degrees this earth became covered with a coating of what we call inorganic soil. Later, generation after generation of tiny plants and animals which lived in the soil died, and their remains formed the first organic materials of the soil.
Apparatus for testing the capacity of soils to take in and retain moisture.
You are all familiar with the difference between the so-called rich soil and poor soil. The dark soil contains more dead plant and animal matter, which forms the portion called humus.
Humus contains Organic Matter.—It is an easy matter to prove that black soil contains organic matter, for if an equal weight of carefully dried humus and soil from a sandy road is heated red-hot for some time and then reweighed, the humus will be found to have lost considerably in weight, and the sandy soil to have lost very little. The material left after heating is inorganic material, the organic matter having been burned out.
Soil particles cling to root hairs. Why?