Abstract

During the last few years there has been in this country a spate of talk about scientific farming and carrying science to the farmer. The sum and substance of all this talk that is being made seems to me to be nothing but a lavish use of ammonium sulphate and insecticides. My ten years' study of agriculture has, however, given me a totally different idea of scientific farming. I am attempting to express here the essence of what I have learnt, in the hope that if I am wrong, some expert will put me right. I have gathered that the type of soil fertility which results in high productivity depends firstly, upon a certain physical condition of the soil. The physical properties of the soil which determine productivity are known collectively as "soil structure" by which is ment the state of aggregation of the soil particles on which depend the principal air and water regimes of the soil. In a structureless soil the separate particles tend to pack into the smallest possible space, producing a minimum of porosity, aeration, permeability, and water-holding capacity, which are qualities indispensable to the healthy growth of cultivated crops. We are told that experience has shown that the degree of granulation of a soil is a rough measure of its state of fertility, and that the higher the state of granulation of any given soil the more productive it will be, as measured by crap yields.

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