LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. "^^ Shelf J&&6 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL IN ITS RELATION TO PLANTS AND BUSINESS. A BOOK OF OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTS FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS, STUDENTS, AND FARMERS. / CHARLES BARNARD, AUTHOR OF "TALKS ABOUT THE WEATHER," ETC. The success or failure of our farmers affects the price of bread on all our tables, and we cannot say we do not care for these things. Whatever is good for the farmer to kn ow is go od for all to know. BOSTON: CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, 117 FRANKLIN STREET. 1886. Copyright, 1886, By RAND, AVERY, & CO. *>** ^ n^ CONTENTS, PAGE Introduction ix CH AFTER I. THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. I. The First Observations. II. The Bones of the World. III. Surface Indications 1-12 CHAPTER II. THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. IV. The Soil-makers. V. Weathering. VI. The Soil Movers and Sorters. VII. Plants and Living Creatures as Soil- makers 13-35 CHAPTER III. THE SOIL THE HOME OF THE PLANTS. VIIL Organic and Inorganic. IX. Experiments with Soils . 36-47 CHAPTER IV. KINDS OF SOILS. X. Sand and Clay. XL Experiments with Sand and Clay. XII. Sand Soils and Clay Soils 48-60 iii IV CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. page THE ELEMENTS OF SOILS. XIII. The Elements. XIV. Soil Analysis 61-71 CHAPTER VI. IMPROVEMENT OF SOILS. XV. Taming the Land. XVI. Tillage. XVII. An Ancient Tool. XVIII. Experiments in Tillage 72-95 CHAPTER VII. M ANUS — A HAND. XIX. An Old Fable. XX. Fertilizers. XXI. Plants as Fer- tilizers. XXII. What to do 96-116 CHAPTER VIII. ARTIFICIAL SOILS. XXIII. Potting Soils. XXIV. Making New Soils . . . 117-127 PREFATORY NOTE. Headquarters of the C. T. C. C, Houghton Farm, Mountainville, Orange County, New York, 1886. The Chautauqua Town and Country Club is a branch of the Chautauqua University, and is devoted to the practical study of plants and animals, horticulture and agriculture. Its course of instruction extends over two years, and includes the reading of the four books forming this series, and the performance of a number of experiments and easy studies with plants and ani- mals. This is the second book of the required course of reading, and is to be read by all members during the first winter of the class to which they belong. For full particulars concerning the course of instruction, ad- dress Miss Kate F. Kimball, secretary of the C. L. S. C, Plainfield, N. J. This book was prepared at the Club Headquarters ; and all the experiments here described have been made vi PRE FA TOR Y NO TE. the subject of study in the experimental department of the farm, under the immediate superintendence of Major Henry E. Alvord, manager of Houghton Farm. THE AUTHOR. TO THE MEMBERS OF THE CHAUTAUQUA TOWN AND COUNTRY CLUB. This book, entitled "Talks about the Soil," is the second of our required course of reading. We all join in reading this book at least once during the first winter we are members of the club. As in our first book, so in this, you will find a number of novel and instructive experiments and observations. You cannot fail to learn something from each, and you are all earnestly requested to try as many of the experi- ments as possible. The examination papers that will be sent to you after reading this book will include a few questions that can be answered only by trying the experiments ; and you will find it of advantage to try as many as possible in order that you may win our Chautauqua diploma when you graduate. Trusting you will find the book of interest and use to you, and that it will help you in taking one more step towards obtaining your diploma, I am Sincerely your friend, CHARLES BARNARD, Superintendent of Instruction, C. T. C. C. INTRODUCTION. The world is a great book, and he who walks or rides may read. We cannot get inside the earth ; and so it happens we do not know positively how it looks within the thin crust on which we live, nor can we, except in a very uncertain way, know of what the in- terior is made or in what condition it may be. This is not of much consequence ; because the outside of the world, the part we call the ground, and the things upon it, are quite enough to take all our attention. Upon the surface of the world are the great seas, the mountains, the plains and rivers ; and among these things we spend our lives. It is not very convenient to get off the ground, except for a few hours in a balloon : so it happens we must at all times remain on the surface of this great and wonderful book called the Earth or the World. We might board a steamer, and sail upon the sea, and soon lose sight of the land, and yet all the time we would be comparatively near the ground. Beneath the deepest seas is still the solid ground ; and the ship merely floats above the crust of the earth, upon the water. In a few places, men in X INTRODUCTION. search of coals or metals have opened deep holes in the ground. We might go down into one of these mines, in the hope of finding out something concern- ing the inside of the world ; but we should find it so uncommonly dark that not a thing could be seen. We may carry a lamp ; but its feeble light only shows rough rocks or glistening coal, looking precisely like the rocks and coals we have seen on the hillsides. We stand still a while in the gloom of the mine, and listen, in the hope we may hear some sound from the interior of the earth that may tell us what is going on there : there is nothing, — nothing save intense blackness, awesome stillness, deep, profound, and ter- rifying. We may be glad to escape up the elevator to the sunshine, well content to spend our lives upon the solid ground. A trip in a balloon is quite as unsatis- factory. The sky seems just as high ; the stars, the sun, and the moon are no nearer; and, if we look down, we find the ground extends in every direction till it is lost in the distance, — blue, indistinct, im- mense. The air is thin and cold, and we may be glad when the balloon voyage is safely over, and we are once more on the good, old-fashioned ground. So, it appears, we have to spend our whole lives upon one of the planets ; and as we cannot get inside of it, and cannot get away from it, we are really pris- oners on the outside or surface of the great star called Earth. The air is cold and thin, the caves and mines are dismal and dangerous. We do not care to stay either above or below the ground ; and, though we are INTRODUCTION. XI prisoners upon it, we may be very well satisfied. On the ground stand our homes ; out of the ground come our food and clothing, fruits, flowers, grain, wood, precious metals, coal, gas, iron, and all else that goes to make our lives worth living. Out of this same ground we stand upon, comes all wealth of every kind. Certainly it is well worth our time and labor to study this stony surface of the earth. If the ground is the source of so many good things, we ought to be well acquainted with it, that we may learn to win from it more food, more clothing, more wealth of every kind. One of the first things we observe in looking at the ground is, that it is in almost every place covered with plants. These plants we see are good, some for food, some for useful woods, some for materials for clothing, and others are excellent foods for birds and animals. It is through these plants we gain wealth from the ground. We have already, in the first book of this series of Chautauqua Talks, made a number of observations and experiments, that we might learn something of the relations of the earth and the sun to living plants. We examined the effects of the movements of the earth upon plants ; we studied the effects of light and darkness, the changes of the seasons, the winds and rains, and learned much that is of value in caring for useful plants of all kinds. We have now to consider the home of plants, the soil in which they live and grow. We shall in this book, as in the other, make experiments with real things, and thus learn by direct Xll INTRODUCTION. personal observations of nature. We shall learn why and how the soil in which plants grow was made, by- observing the work still going on about us every day. We shall endeavor to find out for ourselves what the soil really is, by trying experiments with it to see how it behaves under certain circumstances. We shall also look at the different kinds of soils, to see which is best suited to our different plants ; and thus save our- selves from the mistake of planting cranberries on a rocky hillside, and watermelons in a peat-bog, or hunt- ing for violets on a sand-bank, or pond-lilies on a mountain-side. We shall see that while there are trees in every State and Territory, these trees are different in different places, and that this difference depends in part upon the ground in which the trees stand. We shall see that it is not sufficient to learn from our observations of the sun, the wind, and rain, how plants are affected by the weather. We must know more. We must learn how plants feed, and where they get the food they need. It is not enough to learn from our first observations, where to place our garden, and how to arrange our plants in a sunny window. We must know how to select the right soil for the garden, and how to treat it, and how to prepare the soil in our flower-pots ; or all our studies and observations will be so many half- facts, — good as far as they go, yet not going far enough. It is to these new studies, experi- ments, and observations, we now advance, remember- ing all we learned before, and using our knowledge to explain much that may seem new and strange. INTRODUCTION. Xlll When we come to look at the ground closely, we soon learn that it rests upon masses of rocks and stone. Some of these stones are very hard; others are very beautiful, such as the rosy granites, the varie- gated marbles, and the blue slates. These, we see, are capital building-materials. Other stones are not so beautiful, and make good foundation-stones for our houses ; others are soft, like soapstone ; others split into thin slabs suitable for flagstones ; others can be heated, and will melt, giving iron, copper, and other metals. In still other stones, gold and silver are found. Some stones will burn, some with a bright flame, others with much smoke ; and we call these stones coals. All of these various stones form, with many others, the crust or outside of the earth ; and they are often of great value. At the same time, we must observe here a distinction. The places where these granites, slates, soapstones, marbles, and other stones are blasted, cut, or dug out of the ground, are called quarries. The deep places where the ore-stones and crude metals are obtained are mines. These mines and quarries give us these valuable stones and metals, and so give us wealth. The work of getting them, or, as it is called, of winning them, is the art of mining and the art of quarrying. While we intend to study the ground, these lines of work would only lead us far astray. We are to study the top, or the immedi- ate surface, of the ground; and the art of gathering wealth from this thin skin or outside of the ground, we call agriculture. We are to begin by studying the XIV INTRODUCTION. rocks, not as quarrymen or miners, but as farmers and gardeners. From the rocks come all the soils. Thus it is true the world is a great stone picture-book, and he or she who has eyes to see can learn to read its wonderful pages. We cannot leave the book, as long as we live ; we walk over its pages every day, and this ought to make us eager to understand it. It is a book full of wonders, full of strange and curious things; -and, while men have been reading this book of the world for thousands of years, they have never found the end of the delightful story. TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. CHAPTER I. THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. I. THE FIRST OBSERVATIONS.— We each of us live in a house. It may be a house in a city, and one of a block, or it may stand quite alone in the open country. Perhaps we have only one or two rooms in a hotel or apartment-house. It may be only a log house with one door and two windows. Whatever it is, we call it our home, the place where we live. We see that it is made of wood or stone, bricks, iron, marble, or other materials ; and we know that some one put these together to make our dwell- ing. We know it is an artificial structure. It was not found all finished like a smooth bowlder in the fields, neither did it grow out of the ground like a tree. We look about the house, and very soon find it is resting on something. We can even go into the cellar, and find the very base of the whole thing. Under the house, whether it is in town or country, is the ground ; and this we recognize was not made by men. 2 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. We go outside the house, and find that the ground on which our home stands extends in every direction as far as we can see. To learn the truth concerning any natural object, we must study it, look at it from every side. Here is a natural object, immense in extent, of extraordinary variety in point of form, color, and quality. Let us leave our houses, which are only artifi- cial affairs, and of less interest, and examine this great natural object, — the ground. Perhaps we live in New York City, say in a cross town street below Central Park. We start out upon an exploring expedition, determined to take a good look at the world, and see what we can learn about it. Not very promising at first sight. Smooth flat stones on the walk, rough oblong stones in the street. W 7 e see at once that this is all artificial, and that the real earth is covered up out of sight. We walk on in either direction, and perhaps soon find a place where the street has been torn up for repairs, or where a cellar is being prepared for a house. Nothing but gray stones, glistening here and there with specks of silvery mica. Then the ground beneath the streets and houses is rock. That is one bit of truth. Is it the whole truth ? Walk or ride down town as- far as Astor Place, and then look about for a place where the roadway or a cellar is opened. Here is something very different. There are no stones to be seen ; and in place of steam drills and blasting-powder to break open the hard rocks, the workmen here use shovels to dig up the loose yellow sand. If the cellar is deep, THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. 3 we see the sand is laid in layers and curious streaks and lines, and that it appears to extend to an indefi- nite depth. We have learned another truth : The ground is rough rock that splits into irregular slabs, or is loose sand. We have not travelled a mile, and already we have learned two facts. We have also learned that one observation was not enough. The second observation showed that we should be entirely wrong if we concluded, from the first observation, that the entire world was made of splintery rock full of sparkling mica. It is clear we must go on, or make still another mistake. Already we have learned a good rule in observing nature : The whole truth is found only after many observations. If you live in Chicago, or Portland, Me., or Port- land, Ore., or in some other place, look about in the streets, — or if your home is in the country, around the house, — and make four observations, in four dif- ferent directions, and find out whether the ground is rock or sand or something else. If we are in New York, we may extend our explorations a little farther. Walking west through the street, we come in time to the Hudson River. From the end of the docks we can look across the water, and see a steep wall of dark rock stretching along the bank of the river. There are trees and perhaps houses to be seen on top ; and at the foot of the black cliffs, near the water, there appears to be a gentle slope covered with trees or grass. We know that this wall of rock is called the Palisades, and even at this distance we can see that 4 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. the great masses of rock must be of a very differ- ent kind from the whitish-gray rocks in New York. Another bit of truth : All rocks are not of the same kind and color. Another day we might go up the river above Yonkers, and cross over to the Palisades, and make a regular study of them, and find that there are many singular and interesting things to be learned from them. Just now we must go farther afield, and take a wider look over the ground. We cross the river to Hoboken, and taking the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western road, go towards the Orange Mountains. After passing the tunnel under the Palisades, we come out on an immense flat, cov- ered with tall grass and crossed by winding rivers, and we recognize the great Hackensack meadows. Then, the ground is not all rock or sand. By the edge of the reedy banks we see the black oozy peat and river mud. Disagreeable ! Why, no ! nothing is disagree- able if we look at it in a scientific spirit. This great fiord is one of the most peculiar places in the world, and has much to tell us of the greatest interest, had we time to stop. See that hill off to the north, like an island in this green sea. That's a bit of the Pali- sades left out there by itself. That, too, could tell us a long story. We ride on through Newark, and come to pleasant villages. Observe the country roads and the ploughed fields. The ground is red, and the low places wet and muddy. Here is something new, — something very different from the meadows, or the rocks in the city. THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. 5 Another day we may take the New- Haven road, and go out as far as Stamford in Connecticut. Here we find something wholly different. The land is hilly. There are very few level meadows, except along the shore of the sound. Through the grass in the fields appear many gray rocks covered with moss and lichens. The roads are gray and stony and the fields have none of that uniform red color we saw in New Jersey, but show every shade of brown and dark yellow. An- other day we may take the Long- Island Railroad, and go out towards Far Rockaway. Here is quite an- other country, more level, with whiter fields and more sandy roads. Still another expedition may take us up the Hudson by boat, and in two or three hours we are sailing among steep mountains covered everywhere with forests. These observations of different places about New York show us that the surface of the earth is full of variety in shape, in color, and character. The ground is composed in part of rocks, of sand and gravel, and many other things. If you are unable to make these journeys about New York, look around your home, wherever it may be, and you will discover that the ground varies in color, surface, and in materials, in every place. You may live upon a prairie, where all the ground seems, as far as you can see, to be every- where the same ; yet even here there will be differences between one field and another. Examine the country about your home in four different directions, — north, south, east, and west, as far as you can conveniently 6 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. walk or ride, — and make notes of all you see concern- ing the surface of the ground. Note whether it be level or hilly, whether there are mountains near or in sight, or whether there be only low rounded hills and winding valleys. Note also the color of the roads and ploughed fields. Put the date, the names and distances of the places, and all these facts, on the report, and, having signed it, put it away in a safe place. The day may come when you will be glad to refer to it again. We have learned that the surface of the world ex- hibits great variety in form and color. We must now take up a regular series of observations to find out the cause of this variety. The most important is the ac- tual surface or form, — whether it be flat, or gently sloping, or steep and rough. The color of the ground is of use in helping us to study it ; but just now it is of less importance, and we will look at the surface only. In making these observations, it will be well also to observe the direction in which the ground slopes, — whether it be towards the sun at noon, or away from it in some other direction. II. THE BONES OF THE WORLD. — We know that animals, fishes, and birds have bones. These bones united in various ways form the creature's skele- ton, and upon the form of the skeleton depends the form or shape of the living creature. We might con- clude that the surface of the ground was in like man- ner dependent upon some interior skeleton or bony structure. In one sense this is true, and in another THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. 7 it is not exactly true. The hills and mountains have been called the "bones of the earth," because they are formed of rock over which is spread a thin layer of soil in which all plants grow. Here and there on the higher and steeper parts, as at the top of the Pali- sades on the Hudson and other hills or mountains, the rocks are bare ; and people have said that the bare bones of the hills can at such places be seen. This is an interesting idea, and is good because it helps us to get at the real truth. All high hills and mountains are made of rock. The bare spots plainly show this, and every mine or oil-well sunk in the hills shows only solid rock, or the remains of rocks, as far down as men have ever been able to bore. The rocks are the bones of the hills. They are really much more. A skeleton, as any visit to a museum will show us, is composed of bones arranged in a particular order, — the bones of a dog being arranged in one way, the bones of a pickerel in quite another way. There are spaces between the bones, and we recognize that every creature's skeleton is a framework held together by the creature's muscles and soft parts. It is quite dif- ferent with a mountain. It is composed of rock, but the rock is in a mass. There is no framework ; and, except in shape, the rocky mass of one hill may be just like another. Thus we see that the rocks do not form a true skeleton for the hills or mountains. They are simply masses of rock ; and their shape or outside surface depends upon many different things, some of them quite independent of the rocks themselves. 8 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. This idea of the rocks being skeletons of the hills, we thus see, is a purely fanciful notion. A mere fancy may suggest a truth. The hills and mountains are gigantic masses of rock. What of the meadows, the sandy wastes along the shore, the wide prairies where not a stone as big as a walnut can be found ? Is there no rocky frame to these level parts of the world ? Certainly. The whole exterior surface of the earth is rock. Under the prairie, under the seas, under the wide pine-barrens of the South, lie the deep rocks, the foundations that hold up all we can see of the world. A vast shell of rock really makes the skeleton of the earth. What is under the stony frame, we do not know ; perhaps more rock to the very centre of the planet. Perhaps the rock is glowing / white with heat. In the coal-mine we found it very / warm. Volcanoes and hot springs plainly show there is heat and fire somewhere below the ground. Where, no one can tell. Perhaps no man will ever know. It does not matter. The rocky shell that completely covers all from sight, securely holds us up ; and upon its surface we live and work. At times there are movements and earthquakes ; yet the planet, as a whole, keeps quiet and secure. The rocks make the great bone-like frame of the earth, and it is these rocks we are first to study. Over a living skeleton is always flesh and skin, clothing it all from sight. So it is with the earth. The rocky frame of the globe is covered with an outside skin of the greatest beauty. This skin or outside part is called the soil. It covers nearly all THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. g the rocky floor of the continents from sight, and upon it we live ; and from it come plants, each having a value and beauty of its own after its kind. This skin, or mask, that hides the rocks that cover all the planet is, com- pared with the whole thickness of the earth, infinitely thin. It is at best only a few feet deep, often only a few inches deep. It is as if we had placed a blanket of the thinnest cloth over the back of the largest ele- phant we could find. The rocky crust of the earth, from the top of the highest mountain to the bottom of the deepest mine, compared with the thickness of the earth from the surface to the centre, is as one is to four hundred. If the crust we are able to measure is only ¥ ^o °f tne thickness to the centre, how thin is the soil compared, with the mass of the earth ? However, we are ourselves but specks and mites compared with the whole mass of the globe, so we need not trouble ourselves concerning the comparative thinness of the skin of our planet-home. We wish now to study the many-colored coat of the world, and to do this we must begin with the rocks. We wish to study the soil, because from it come plants, fruits, clothing, foods, flowers, and wealth; and the soil is the child of the rocks. in. SURFACE INDICATIONS. — The miner pros- pecting through the country in search of valuable metals is guided in part by what he calls the " surface indications." If the water in the brooks is deep red, there may be iron in the hills. If bits of worn and weathered coal lie half hid in the grass at the foot of 10 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. a cliff, then the edge of the coal-seam may crop out somewhere far up the mountain-side, from whence these stray bits of coal rolled down. If the man is looking for potters' clay, he studies the low places to see where the water has collected in muddy pools ; after the rain-water has dried from the pools and shal- lows, he sees the ground has cracked into irregular fissures. The man looking for fine white sand for making glass examines the road-sides, and exposed places along the railroad-cuttings, for traces of sand- heaps. All these are marks or indications on the sur- face, giving hints of what may be found beneath the ground. We, in like manner, are prospecting for good soils; and we must first of all look out for surface indications. Let us understand the matter clearly. Everywhere beneath the ground is solid rock continuous around the entire world. If the ground were everywhere level, as in some of our Western States, we might never know this till we came to dig down through the soil in search of coal or metals. Very likely, if the whole world were level, we might never have heard of these things. Fortunately the ground is not everywhere level. In many places the surface is crumpled up into ridges and knobs, so that the rocks with all their metals, coal, and mineral wealth, are in sight and often in easy reach. These raised places are the hills and mountains, and they form our first surface indica- tions. What is the character of the country about your THE EARTH'S CLOTHING. II home ? Is it level like a prairie for many miles in all directions ? Is it a valley between hills ? Is it directly among the hills or mountains, or are there many low hills with small valleys ? Walk or ride about in dif- ferent directions, and get at the facts in your case; and put it all down in your note-book, with the date and place of the observation. Another indication may be found in the plants. Is the country about your home covered with forests, or are there cultivated fields and grassy pastures, with occasional groves of trees? Are there bare places where no plants grow ? Do the wild plants and grasses grow rapidly in the summer, or are the wild plants small and stunted, and of feeble growth? Examine the plants and trees, both in fields and gardens, and put down in your note-book every thing you observe. If there are streams near by, look at the water. Is it clear or muddy, and what is its usual color ? If you live near the sea or the great lakes, note this also. Observe the ploughed fields and gardens. Is the land wet and sticky after a rain, or does all the water quickly disappear from the surface as soon as the storm has passed ? What is the color of the ground about your home? All these things are surface indications, and should be noted, and the records kept for future refer- ence. By their aid we shall be able, in due time, to decide upon the value of any soil we may see, with a certain degree of confidence. If we understand the surface indications of the soil, we shall be able to tell pretty closely whether any field or farm is valuable or 12 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. worthless ; whether it will give us good crops, or only poor and unprofitable returns for our labor. To make these surface indications of value, we must first study the past history of the world, and endeavor to find out how the various soils that cover the rocky frame of our planet were made. The soil is the child of the rocks. The rocks appear through the surface of the ground, among the hills and mountains. It is, there- fore, to the hills we must look for information concern- ing this varied and beautiful garment of the world, we call the soil. THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 1 3 CHAPTER II. THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. iv. THE SOIL-MAKERS. — There are two ways of looking at the history of things. One is to imagine that things were first made as they are now. The other is to think that things are as they now appear, because of many past events that gradually shaped them to their present form. It has been thought by many wise men, in the past, that the world was made, from the very beginning, just as we now see it ; that when Adam went forth from the Garden of Eden, he found the world but freshly made, and precisely as we see it to-day. It has been thought by other wise men, that the years of the world are past counting ; that our planet passed through many long stages of growth; that its present appearance is the result of infinite changes, every change being a step upward, a step toward improvement. In the opinion of these men, the world, under God's guidance, grew to its present form through various stages of growth, and in each stage subject to natural laws that have neither change nor turning. These are opinions, and there have been good men who have firmly held to one or the other of these two opinions. /4 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. The moment we come to study the rocks, we find many things that lead us to think that this last opinion must be the truth. The geologist is the student of rocks; and his history of the world, as he reads it in the rocks themselves, is the geological history of the world. This history, he tells us, is still going on now. The rocks make their own history every day. Day by day, year by year, the face of the rocks changes. From these changes, the v geologist has rea- soned backward to the time when the rocks began. He has put many observations together, and formed what seems to be a truthful story. We must glance at this story before we can rightly understand why and how the soil under our feet was made. In the beginning God created the universe, "and the earth was without form, and void." There is noth- ing we can know beyond this. We see, far beyond the little group of planets we call the solar system, vapor- ous clouds of light without definite form, vast, void of life, perhaps only clouds of flaming gas. Are these the beginnings of a world ? No man can say ; yet they seem to suggest the beginnings of a star, and a star is a world. In like manner, our star, now clad with a cold skin of stone, may have been a cloud of fiery gases that through countless ages condensed into a vast ball, swinging round the sun. In time it became more solid, and spent a part of its heat ; for the laws of nature, the laws of light, of sound, electricity, mag- netism,, attraction, and chemical action and re-action, were at work then as now. These laws would tend to THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 1 5 produce, in time, a globe nearly round, with a thin crust on the outside, that, as the cooling and con- densation went on, would shrink and shrivel up into wrinkles and ridges. No man can say how slowly or how rapidly these changes took place. God is in no haste. A million years are as the swing of a pendulum in the clock of his time. All the years, up to the time when the first rocks appeared, are as the dust in the air, — past counting. Men have tried to roughly esti- mate them, but it is like measuring a mountain with a yard-stick. We have to be content to call it ages, and without knowing exactly what ages mean. It is enough now to imagine that there came a time in the history of our planet when the surface of the earth became hard enough and cool enough to hold water. The clouds, driven off perhaps by the heat, condensed ; and scalding rain fell on the first rocks. What these rocks were, or how they looked, we can only vaguely guess. They may have been precisely like our granites or like the lavas we see to-day thrown out of volcanoes. This does not matter at present. We have only to note that at the time the first rocks appeared, there were winds and storms, lightning, clouds, rains, and eventually hail, snow, and ice. The surface was probably very irregular; and the water gathered in certain places, and the dry land appeared. We have observed in our studies of the weather certain laws governing the temperature, the clouds and rain. There is no reason to think these laws did not prevail then. There is every reason to think that the laws we 1 6 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. see in operation to-day were in operation then. " He giveth snow like wool. He scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels : who can stand before his cold ? He sendeth out his word, and melteth them : he causeth the wind to blow, and the waters flow." God reigns in this planet, though it be only a mass of naming gas, a ball of liquid fire cased in a shell of glowing rocks, or the world beau- tiful where men live. What effect would these laws have upon the first rocks? What influence would the weather have on them ? The geologist tells us that the first rocks began to "weather •" They were exposed to the weather, and remarkable changes at once began. This process he calls " weathering." The result of this weathering is at last to make soils. Naturally we might ask him how he knows that. His answer is very simple : be- cause this process of weathering is going on now upon all rocks, and there is no reason to think it did not go on then. The geologist has also another word, " de?i- udation." When the first rocks appeared, they were doubtless soon thrown or crumpled up by the shrink- ing of the crust, into heaps and ridges. These prime- val hills began at once to be weathered, — to be torn down and denuded by stormy winds, frost, ice, rain, torrents, and floods. The moment there began to be a rocky crust to the world, destruction, wreck, change, and alteration began. The weather crumbled and broke down the rocks. Denudation set in ; and the crooked began to be made, straight, the rough places plain, and THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 1 7 all the mountains were brought low. The sea brought its sledge-hammer waves to smash and destroy the rocks. Frightful storms and cyclones tore away the crests of the hills. Glaciers ploughed gigantic furrows through the hills, and icebergs scratched the very face of the hard rocks. No man was there to see. Per- haps no living creature, perhaps not even the lowest form of plant, was yet alive. We guess at these things, because they are still going on to-day. We see the record of past ages in the rocks under our feet. These things that tend to alter and change the rocks, the frost, rain, the air, storms, ice, and floods, were the first soil-makers. v. WE A THERING. — Schunemunk Mountain forms the western side of the valley that opens through the rear of the Highlands back of West Point on the Hud- son. The valley forms the gateway through the moun- tains from Newburgh to the valley of the Ramapo, and offers a road for the old Albany Turnpike, and the present Short Cut Railroad connecting Newburgh with the New York, Lake Erie, and Western. From Hough- ton Farm the whole eastern face of the mountain, extending north-east and south-west for several miles, can be plainly seen. At intervals through the trees can be seen frowning cliffs of dark rock deeply stained by the weather. About half a mile south of the station, one of these cliffs is quite near the railroad, and can be easily examined. This cliff admirably illustrates weathering, as the work is going on very rapidly. On climbing over the fence by the railroad, and en- 18 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. tering the woods, the ground is found to be very rough. Through the thin grass can be seen irregular fragments of hard stone. On advancing up the hill, these rocks become more plentiful, till at last the ground is completely covered with sharp rough stones of every shape. Presently we see among these ragged rocks great numbers of smooth round pebbles. As we go on, these become more common, and we find many lumps or masses of pebbles bound together, and look- ing much like plums in a pudding. We recognize these as pieces of " pudding-stone." The first rock broken into irregular pieces is quite different in color and texture, and is a trap-rock. The particular names of these rocks are not now important. The thing to observe is that something has smashed and broken these rocks in pieces. These rocks were evidently once solid masses. Now they are only ruins, the shat- tered remains of some mountain. We climb upward in search of an answer. At every step the hill grows steeper, the fragments of rocks larger and more irregu- lar. At last we reach a scene of the wildest ruin and confusion. Huge fragments of the pudding-stone lie piled one over the other, as if hurled down from the mountain-top. Here a mass weighing tons has ploughed deep into the ground, raising a mass of rough gravel before it as it slid down the mountain. Here a great lump has shot half-way through a tree, and is barely supported at one end as if ready to fall with a crash down the hill. A fallen tree with every leaf withered and yellow has a splintered trunk, and when THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 1 9 we reach it we find a mass of rusty rock has plunged completely through it. Climbing as best we can over the wild confusion of smashed and broken rocks and shattered trees, we reach the base of the gray cliff. It is split and splintered in every direction, and many pieces seem ready to fall and crush us. It is evident this cliff is being torn down, for here are the fragments at our feet. The work is going on now, for the fallen tree was cut down this very summer. The leaves have only withered recently, and the splintered wood is still fresh. The cliff is fast weathering away. What are the causes of this destruction ? Is it best that this great Schunemunk Mountain be thus torn down? and what good will come of all this ruin- ous change? We pick up a mass of pudding-stone, and throw it down upon the rocks below, and it bursts into a thousand pieces, and a shower of pebbles rat- tles over the rocks. Observe the color of the stone, — a dull red. The plums of the pudding-stone are bound together with iron. It has rusted on exposure to the air, and falls apart easily. Here is our first clew. The air is at work on the cliff. The oxygen of the air is combining with the iron to form the red dust called oxide of iron, and the pebbles being bound only with dust easily fall apart. Here we see the air is an agent in breaking down the rocks. The gases in the air act chemically upon all rocks, to disintegrate and break them up into dust and powder. So it has been since the first rocks appeared. The moment they were exposed to the air, they began to be destroyed. 20 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. Rub your hand over the face of the cliff. It is dusty. The air attacks every part of the surface, and it slowly decays and turns to dust. In the case of the pudding- stone, the process is comparatively rapid, because the iron cement that binds the pebbles together rusts away and lets them free, just as beads are let loose when the string breaks. The fallen tree and the vast heap of shattered rocks at the base of the cliff plainly show that the destruction must be comparatively rapid. Could the air alone do this ? From the appearance of the cliff, there must be other causes at work. We notice that the cliff is full of cracks. When it rains, the water must flow down through all these cracks, and lodge in countless minute fissures in the face of the rock. After a heavy rain, when the rock is filled with water, it may clear away, and a sharp, cold wind come out of the north-west. Every drop of water freezes and expands, and bursts open the rock, splitting off minute specks and scales, or throwing down great lumps that crash through the trees, and destroy every thing before them. Here is another and more powerful cause at work breaking down the rock. In the summer there is no frost , and yet the rain may be at work washing moss and dust into cracks already opened, and forming a sponge ready to hold water that freezing next winter will act with still greater force. The dry dust sifted into the cracks and open- ings formed in the rock will also expand when wet, and push off small pieces, or start a great mass that last THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 21 winter's ice left just ready to fall. Perhaps in this way the great lump that cut down the tree not many weeks ago was toppled over. The wind may also in storms brush off small bits already loosened and ready to fall, and occasionally the lightning splits off a fragment. Every rain that falls brings down acids from the air to slowly eat away the rock. The sun warms the face of the rock, and helps to destroy it by expanding its surface, and opening minute channels for the sudden summer rain, that with thin fingers seeks out every crack to pull the rock to pieces. Even the mosses and lichens growing here and there, and the roots of trees and plants, assist in the work ; and thus the noble cliff reared so high in the air, even the mountain itself, is visibly falling in ruins before our eyes. Slowly, in- finitely slowly, but without pause, the work goes on, and has gone on since that wild day when with frightful sounds and awful earthquakes, old Schunemunk was upraised. As we go down the mountain-side, we find again the fragments of trap-rock. There, too, are the ruins of some higher cliff. It is a harder rock, and the pieces are sharp and jagged. The weather must have worked very slowly, for the edges and corners are hardly dulled. The trees that spring up among the stones show they have lain here for at least fifty years, and the stones are almost unchanged in that time. The years that passed while they were slowly broken down from their old cliff may be numbered by hun- dreds. No man can tell. We can only observe that while the work now going on at the pudding-stone 22 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. cliff is very rapid, this other and probably much older work was very slow. This weathering of the rocks has been going on ever since the world began. Heat, cold, water, air, ice, the wind, expansion and contraction, storms, all the phenomena we have been studying in our observations of the weather, unite to break down and destroy the rocks. The work is still going on every day. It can be seen easily all along the Palisades on the Hudson, and on every rocky hill and mountain. Look about among the hills in your neighborhood, and make care- ful explorations and observations of the effects of the weathering upon the rocks. Put down full notes of the work, whether it seems to be going on slowly or rapidly ; and note particularly what seems to be the chief influence, — the rain, or the frost. In some places you will find the rocks breaking down into sand, dust, and powder, during every rain. In others you will find it hard to tell whether the work is going on or not. In all it is going on, and good observation will soon enable you to find out its cause. From the railroad that creeps along under the shadow of Schunemunk, looking south, can be seen the profile of the mountain. The slope is peculiar. At the top it is abrupt and steep ; then it softens, and with a lovely curve the graceful outline melts gently away into the level meadows of the beautiful valley. The mountain is wasting away; and its ruins are slipping, slipping ever, down into the fertile valley. The soil-makers are at work here, as everywhere, THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 2$ since the rocks began. The weathering of the rocks degrades and denudes the mountains, and this very- destruction is for the benefit of the valley. These broken and shattered stones are melting away into sand and dust, and this sand and dust helps to make the soil out of which spring flowers and fruits and crops of every kind. Faster or slower, forever and forever, the work will go on till the mountains are brought low, and the rough places are made plain. Out of ruin and destruction come ever life and beauty. Even the outline of this rubbish and wreck, swept down from the mountain, makes a beautiful curve against the sky. They call such a sloping mass of waste and broken material at the foot of a mountain or cliff, a talus. We see the talus about the base of nearly every rocky hill, and we recognize its outline by its wonderful beauty. VI. THE SOIL MOVERS AND SORTERS. — In our excursion to the pudding-stone on Schunemunk, we observed the influence of the weather upon the rocks. We saw that heat and cold, water, air, rain, and storms, tended to tear down and degrade the mountain. If near our homes we found other examples of this weathering of the rocks, it was only to find illustrations of the same thing, showing that the work is universal, and not confined to this single mountain in the Highlands of the Hudson. All who live in the level portions of the country, and are unable to find near their homes examples of this work, will simply note the fact that this work does go on in all hills, 24 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. that the tendency of the rocks is to crumble and fall down under the influence of weathering, and that this weathering has undoubtedly been going on without interruption since the first rocks appeared. We will all, whether living near the hills or on the most level prairie, now join in still further observations out of doors, in the neighborhood of our homes. If the mountains crumble and fall into loose heaps of broken stone, why do we not find the heaps just where they fall? Why is there a long, sloping talus at every denuded cliff? We might expect, from all we have learned, that there would be masses of loose stones about every ruined mountain, and that the broad plains, like the great valley between the Alle- ghanies and the Rocky Mountains, would be bare rock, just as at the beginning. We know that this is not so, and that our prairie States, far from any mountains, often have deep soils, rich in the remains of long- vanished hills. We must find the answer to these questions by observing what is going on about us every day. Go to the nearest brook or river after a heavy rain. Observe the color of the water. It is perhaps yellow or brown, with mud and floating sediment. If you cannot do this, observe the little -streams of water in the road or in the street-gutter at the beginning of a smart shower. The water is muddy and discolored. It is evident the water is carrying along many fine particles of earth and soil. If the stream is in a hilly country, we may observe, that, beside the fine mud THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 2$ carried along by the water, there is sand sweeping onward over the bed of the stream. If the stream is a mere rivulet that quickly dries up after the rain has ceased, we can examine its bed when it is dry, and plainly see that the water carried along sand, small stones, and fine mud. At low stages of the water, our Western rivers show this very plainly wherever shoals and sand-bars appear. Make full and careful notes of all that is seen in such a dry bed, for there are two great facts to be learned from these observations. For those who live by the sea, the same observations can be made all along the shore, at the mouth of every bay or inlet on the coast. We have here the great soil-mover, — water. The rain, falling on the wasting rocks, sweeps away the mi- nute specks and grains chipped off by the weather, and carries them down to the nearest streamlet and brook. These fine bits of rock do not float, but are suspended in the water or roll along the bed of the stream. The ragged flakes and scales of stone crash and grind against each other. Every rough corner is knocked off, and all the pieces become rolled into smooth round particles. The brook is a mill. It is making, from the chips brought down by the rain, sand. A flood comes with more water, and larger pieces of broken rock are pushed into the rapidly moving water ; and these, knocking, tumbling, and grinding over each other, are soon ground into smooth round pebbles and gravel. Onward rolls the confused mass of gravel, sand, and finer bits of rocks, grinding and polishing 26 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. each piece as it goes. In time the stream comes to more level ground, and runs slower and slower. The current, not being able to push the larger stones any farther, leaves them all by themselves. As it goes slower and slower, it is still weaker, and drops the coarser sand, and then the finer sand. Lastly, the finest dust suspended in the water must be dropped in smooth beds of mud ; and the water flows away to the sea quite clear, having left its loads behind in the lowlands, and all correctly sorted out, — the gravel by itself in one place, the sand in another, the fine mud in another. Running water is the great soil- mover. It takes the broken fragments of rocks from the hills, and transports the material to distant plains, perhaps hundreds of miles away. The bits of rock broken off by the cold in the White Mountains may be transported by the Connecticut River, and left as rich soft mud on the meadows about Hartford. The yellow mud of the Mississippi may drift a thousand miles across the continent, and lay the dust of Penn- sylvania hills among the sugar- plantations of Louisiana. The first rains that fell on the oldest primeval rocks became the first soil-movers ; and the work has gone on for countless centuries on centuries, precisely as we see it going on to-day. Floods and storms may have hastened the work. Mountains of volcanic dust may have been swept away by a single storm, and scattered over the plains for a hundred miles in every direction. There is every reason to think, that, in the geological past, the streams and rivers wore down and carried THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 2J away whole mountain ranges in a very short time. In the West we find that this work of carrying away the ruins of degraded hills is going on now upon the most gigantic scale, and from this we can form an idea of what may have happened long ago. Currents and tides along the shore are also movers of sand and gravel, moving beaches and sand-bars from place to place, and often changing the whole character of the coast for miles. We observed, in studying the empty bed of the riv- ulet, that the sand after the water had subsided is left in one place, the fine mud in another. This is often shown on a small scale in every street-gutter ; and, to the young man or young woman with eyes, the street may be an open lesson in the first principles of geol- ogy. Running water is thus the great rock-sorter, as well as rock-mover. The ruins of the hills are not left in hopeless confusion on the plains. The whole of the material is completely sorted : the larger stones and pebbles are left in one place j the sand is carried farther away, and is left by itself ; and the lighter stuff, the mere specks and scales of rock, are carried farthest, and left also by themselves. We saw in our studies of the weather, that the sun brought the water from the seas, and that the invisible vapor in the air con- densed as clouds about the cold mountain-tops, to fall in rain. We now see that this same rain assists to break down the rocky hills, and to carry the ruins far and wide, and leave the sand and fine silt or mud on the lowlands to cover the naked rocks, and form a 28 TALKS ABOUT THE SOIL. home for plants and grasses. The sun, we learned, is the great rain-mover; and thus it is indirectly the great soil- mover. Added to the moving water we have the wind, that may blow loose dust and sand long distances. Ice in streams may push loose gravel before it along a river-bottom, or even carry it floating on the water. These agencies — water, ice, and wind — have been sufficient to transport whole mountain ranges from one place to another. All that was required was time, and in the history of the ground a million years may be as one day in our lives. There is also one other circumstance to be observed in the slow formation of the soil that now nearly every- where covers the rocky shell of the world. The sur- face rock itself, even where there are no hills, slowly breaks up into fine bits, scraps and dust; and, the surface being level, this broken material left after the weathering of the ground-rock may remain where it is, and thus slowly form a covering of soil over the rock itself. This process is going on all the time, and slowly deepens the soil all over the world. This fact we must enter in our note-books also, because it is of the utmost importance to every man, woman, or child who sows a field of wheat, or plants a flower- seed. While we have observed the effects of weathering upon the rocks, and noticed how running water tends to move and sort the loose material broken off from the rocks, we must not forget that there have been in THE HISTORY OF THE GROUND. 29 the history of the earth wonderful changes that have also had a great influence in giving the surface of the earth its present appearance. Earthquakes have raised mountains in the air. Volcanoes have lifted enormous heaps of lava, dust, and ashes into the clouds, or scat- tered vast quantities of cinders over whole tracts of country. The sea has rolled in upon the land. The lands have even sunk in the water, or been raised up ; and this many times over, so that what were once shallow bays and lagoons became at last mountain- tops. Vast tracts of gravel scattered by streams from old dead mountains have been hardened into stone. Deep black pools of mud have been sunk and crushed in earthquakes, and turned to coal. Whole beaches have been solidified to red sandstones by water charged with iron filtering through the sand. Moreover, climates have changed. Where now we have each season snow and ice in winter, and growing plants and hot sunshine in summer, there was at one time almost continual winter. It is now thought, that for a very long time all of New England, New York, and several other States, were buried out of sight under deep ice. This ice, like the glaciers we see to-day in high mountains, drifted slowly southward over the country, ploughing up the loose earth, grinding the hard faces of the rocks till they were polished like mirrors, cutting deep grooves in the rocks, and push- ing enormous quantities of mud, stones, and gravel through all the valleys. Schunemunk Mountain bears upon its smooth rounded top hundreds of traces where 3