The Soil: an Introduction to the Scientific Study of the Growth of Crops

Abstract

WHEN one who has been for many years both a teacher and an investigator commits to paper the facts and ideas which have formed the substance of his later courses of instruction, we expect a very useful book, and in the present instance we are certainly not disappointed. The book before us takes a wide scope; it deals with the origin of soils, their physical properties, their chemical properties and composition, methods of analysis, the living organisms within the soil, the causes of fertility and sterility, soil types and the natural flora belonging to each. The book is primarily intended for college students. Owing to its wide scope it does not attempt to treat any part of the subject in an exhaustive manner; it possesses, however, the great merits of originality and suggestive-ness, virtues which are not always to be found in the formal text-book. A prominent feature of the work is the introduction of the results of investigations carried on by the author while principal of the Agricultural College at Wye. English books on scientific agriculture have hitherto been so necessarily filled with descriptions of foreign researches that any results obtained under English conditions have an exceptional value, and appeal to the farmer in a special manner.

The Soil: an Introduction to the Scientific Study of the Growth of Crops.

By A. D. Hall Pp. xiii + 286. (London: J. Murray, 1903.) Price 3s. 6d.