DIFFERENT KINDS OF SOIL

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CHAPTER IV. DIFFERENT KINDS OF SOIL

“Four substances, mingled in very variable proportions, enter into the composition of fertile soil, or arable land, namely: sand or silica, clay, limestone, and humus, or vegetable mold. Each one of these ingredients separately would make but very poor soil, quite unsuited for agriculture; but united, mixed together, they fulfill the conditions necessary to fertility. Arable land generally contains all four, with the predominance sometimes of one, sometimes of another. The soil takes the name of its most abundant constituent. Thus have arisen the names, silicious soil, argillaceous soil, calcareous soil, and humous soil, to designate the fertile lands dominated respectively by sand, clay, limestone, and humus. Compound terms are also used. For example, when it is said of a certain soil that it is argillo-calcareous, it is meant that clay and limestone are its chief constituents.

“Sand consists of particles, more or less minute, of very hard rock, sometimes opaque, sometimes as transparent as glass, and always easily recognizable by its property of emitting sparks when struck with steel. Flint and white pebbles belong to this kind of rock, which is called silex, silica, or quartz. These three expressions mean about the same. Sandy soils have little consistency, are easily permeated by water, and freely absorb the sun’s heat, which makes them very subject to drought.

“The name of granite is given to a rock composed chiefly of silica and which forms whole mountains, as in central France and in Brittany. The soil formed by the gradual disintegration of this rock is sometimes called granite soil. It is not very good for agriculture. Chestnut trees prosper in it, as well as certain wild plants characteristic of this kind of land. The principal ones are the various species of heather and the purple digitalis. Heather, with its dainty little pink blossoms, carpets in richest abundance the poorest of sandy soils. The purple digitalis is a large-leaved plant whose flowers, red on the outside, striped with purple and white inside, are arranged in a long and magnificent distaff reaching almost to the height of a man. The flowers are in the shape of long tun-bellied bells or, rather, glove-fingers; hence the plant is sometimes called foxglove, sometimes lady’s fingers.

“The soil composed of substances thrown up by volcanoes is also sandy, and is called volcanic soil. It is generally black and sometimes very fertile.

“Sandy-clay soil is found in the valleys of great rivers. It is the most fruitful and the easiest to cultivate. Such are the soils of the Rhone valley, the valley of the Loire, and that of the Seine. It is still more fertile if it is flooded by the stream at high water. Then the river deposits a rich slime [23]composed of clay and organic matter washed down by the current.

“The soil of heathy or shrubby land is composed of fine sand and of humus from the decayed leaves of heather and other plants. It is only used for flower gardens, and furnishes an example of what might be called sand-and-humus soil.

“Clay is a soil which, when moistened with water and thoroughly kneaded, becomes a soft and tenacious dough, suitable for molding into any desired shape. When perfectly pure it is white, and is known as kaolin, a rare substance of which porcelain is made. Plastic clays are those that are unctuous to the touch, forming with water a yielding mass that hardens with firing. They are used in making pottery. Smectite, or fuller’s earth, is a clay of very different character, not pliable when moistened, but very absorbent of grease and hence used by fullers for cleansing cloth of the oil left on it in weaving. Ochres are clays colored either red or yellow by iron-rust. They are used in coarse painting. Red chalk belongs to this class of clays. Marl is a mixture in variable proportions of clay and limestone. According to which constituent predominates, it is called argillaceous or calcareous. Subjected to the action of air and moisture, marl becomes flaky and crumbles to dust. Marl is used in agriculture to improve the soil.

“A clay soil is quite the opposite of a sandy soil: water makes it swell and converts it into a sticky paste which clings tenaciously to farming implements. [24]Once wet, it is cold, that is to say it dries very slowly. A spade can only divide it into dense clods slow to crumble in the air and not fit for receiving seed. The farmer must be careful to drain off the water and break up the ground by working it before and during frosts. It is improved by mixing with it sand, coal-ashes, and lime. Wheat flourishes better in a clayey soil than in any other kind.

“Clayey soils are recognized by their vegetation. The wild plants peculiar to this kind of soil are colt’s-foot and danewort. Colt’s-foot is also called horse-foot from the shape of its leaves, the outline of which reminds one of a horse’s hoof. The leaves are white underneath. The flowers are yellow like little marigolds, and they appear at the beginning of spring before the leaves. Danewort is a kind of herbaceous elder of about half the height of a man. Its small white flowers are succeeded by berries full of a violet-red juice.”

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