Word Finder - soils

definition

A mixture of mineral particles and organic material, used to support plant growth.

definition

The unconsolidated mineral or organic material on the immediate surface of the earth that serves as a natural medium for the growth of land plants.

definition

The unconsolidated mineral or organic matter on the surface of the earth that has been subjected to and shows effects of genetic and environmental factors of: climate (including water and temperature effects), and macro- and microorganisms, conditioned by relief, acting on parent material over a period of time. A product-soil differs from the material from which it is derived in many physical, chemical, biological, and morphological properties and characteristics.

definition

Country or territory.

example

Kenyan soil

definition

That which soils or pollutes; a stain.

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A marshy or miry place to which a hunted boar resorts for refuge; hence, a wet place, stream, or tract of water, sought for by other game, as deer.

definition

Dung; compost; manure.

example

night soil

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Faeces or urine etc. when found on clothes.

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A bag containing soiled items.

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To make dirty.

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To become dirty or soiled.

example

Light colours soil sooner than dark ones.

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To stain or mar, as with infamy or disgrace; to tarnish; to sully.

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To dirty one's clothing by accidentally defecating while clothed.

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To make invalid, to ruin.

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To enrich with soil or muck; to manure.

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A wet or marshy place in which a boar or other such game seeks refuge when hunted.

definition

To feed, as cattle or horses, in the barn or an enclosure, with fresh grass or green food cut for them, instead of sending them out to pasture; hence (such food having the effect of purging them), to purge by feeding on green food.

example

to soil a horse

Many plants of peaty soils e sclerophylious.

The soils of Florida have sand as a common ingredient.'

Again, the well-known action of earthworms may be said to be a biological work; but the resulting aeration of the soil causes edaphic differences; and earthworms are absent from certain soils, such as peat.

Halo phytes, or plants which live in saline soils, have xerophytic adaptations.

Tobacco is most generally cultivated on loose red soils, which are rich in clays and silicates; and sugar-cane preferably on the black and mulatto soils; but in general, contrary to prevalent suppositions, colour is no test of quality and not a very valuable guide in the setting of crops.

The following list, which is not exhaustive, furnishes material from which a selection may be made to suit various soils and situations.

Flower-beds on light soils may be dug up so as to forward the work of the coming busy spring season.

The well-known failures with rhododendrons, heaths, &c., in ordinary garden soils are also explained by the need of the fungus-infected.

In this more general respect, an arboretum or woodland affords shelter, improves local climate, renovates bad soils, conceals objects unpleasing to the eye, heightens the effect of what is agreeable and graceful, and adds value, artistic and other, to the landscape.

It was introduced into England by Philip Miller about 1 735, and is now common in parks and plantations, where it seems to flourish in nearly all soils.

But it is worthy of special attention that the mere chemical composition of agricultural and garden soils is, as a rule, the least important feature about them, popular opinion to the contrary notwithstanding.

Again, the temperature of the air is affected by radiation from the soil; and radiation differs in various soils.

Xerophytes.Plants which grow in very dry soils; e.g., most hens, Ammophila (Psamma) arenaria, Elymus arenarius, Anasis aretioides, Zilla macro ptera, Sedum acre, Bupleurum spinosum, rtemisia herba-alba, Zollikofferia arborescens.

It is possible, however, that the absence of sunken stomata, and the occurrence of some other halophytic features, are related merely to the succulent habit and not to halophytism, for succulent species often occur on non-saline soils.

Other plants occur indifferently both on calcareous and on non-calcareous soils.

The question of deep and shallow culture has been much discussed among planters without any conclusion applicable to all soils being reached.

In this region the sandstone rocks are generally overlaid with heavy black soil formed from the decaying trap, which is principally devoted to the cultivation of the spring crops, wheat and grain, while rice and hill millets are sown in the lighter and more sandy soils.

Metallurgical operations, such as smelting, roasting, and refining, were scientifically investigated, and in some degree explained, by Georg Agricola and Carlo Biringuiccio; ceramics was studied by Bernard Palissy, who is also to be remembered as an early worker in agricultural chemistry, having made experiments on the effect of manures on soils and crops; while general technical chemistry was enriched by Johann Rudolf Glauber.1

Most of the rocks or soils composing its surface were formed as submarine deposits; the easternmost and southernmost parts are true river deposits.

On drier and higher soils are the persimmon, sassafras, red maple, elm, black haw, hawthorn, various oaks (in all 10 species occur), hickories and splendid forests of longleaf and loblolly yellow pine.

They do well in light, well-drained soils, and have a close family resemblance, the inflorescence being a panicle of white, drooping, tulip-shaped flowers, and the foliage rosulate, sword-shaped and spear-pointed.

Transplant herbaceous plants in light soils, if not done in autumn; also deciduous trees, shrubs and hedges.

Transplant all sorts of hardy evergreens and shrubs, especially in dry soils, giving abundance of water.

Sandy soils are made thereby too dry and leachy, and it is a questionable proceeding to turn the heavy clays upon the top. Planters are, as a result, divided in opinion as to the wisdom of subsoiling.

This knowledge is still lacking with regard to most of the cotton soils.

In spite of the clean culture, good crops of cotton have been grown on some soils in the south for more than forty successive years.

Deep residual clay soils derived from underlying limestones, and coloured red or black according to the predominance of oxides of iron or vegetable detritus, characterize the plains.

It is invariably present in soils, where compounds are formed by nitrifying bacteria.

Sometimes the vegetation, shrubs, trees, &c., as characteristic of certain soils, may furnish evidence as to rock or minerals below.

It appears that with soils which are not rich in humus or not deficient in lime, calcium cyanamide is almost as good, nitrogen for nitrogen, as ammonium sulphate or sodium nitrate; but it is of doubtful value with peaty soils or soils containing little lime, nor is it usefully available as a top-dressing or for storing.

It is found in the form of oxide (silica), either anhydrous or hydrated as quartz, flint, sand, chalcedony, tridymite, opal, &c., but occurs chiefly in the form of silicates of aluminium, magnesium, iron, and the alkali and alkaline earth metals, forming the chief constituent of various clays, soils and rocks.

The soils overlying red sandstone rocks would be reddish and of a sandy nature, while those overlying chalk would be whitish and contain considerable amounts of lime.

In many parts of the country soils exhibiting such relationships, and known as sedentary soils, are prevalent, the transition from the soil to the rock beneath being plainly visible in sections exposed to view in railway cuttings, quarries and other excavations.

There are transported or drift soils, the particles of which have been brought from other areas and deposited over the rocks below.

Perhaps the majority of drift soils, however, have been moved to their present position by the action of the water of rivers or the sea.

A good soil should be deep to allow of extensive root development and, in the case of arable soils, easy to work with implements.

This substance is present in practically all soils but in comparatively small amounts.

Even in the soils which farmers speak of as stiff clays it is rarely present to the extent of more than I or 2%.

From the above account it will be understood that not one of the four chief soil constituents is in itself of value for the growth of crops, yet when they are mixed, as they usually are in the soils met with in nature, one corrects the deficiencies of the other.

Generally speaking, soils containing from 30 to 50% of clay and 50 to 60% of sand with an adequate amount of vegetable residues prove the most useful for ordinary farm and garden crops; such blends are known as " loams," those in which clay predominates being termed clay loalns, and those in which the sand predominates sandy roams. " Stiff clays " contain over 50% of clay; " light sands " have less than to %.

This is the case in " puddled " clays, but in ordinary clay soils the excessively minute particles of which they largely consist tend to form groups of comparatively large composite grains and it is in such natural soils that the pore-space is largest.

The sulphur exists in the soil chiefly in the form of sulphates of magnesium, calcium and other metals; the phosphorus mainly as phosphates of calcium, magnesium and iron; the potash, soda and other bases as silicates and nitrates; calcium and magnesium carbonates are also common constituents of many soils.

Soils containing less than 25% of potash are likely to need special application of potash fertilizers to give good results, while those containing as much as.

Similarly soils with less than i% of nitrogen are likely to be benefited by applications of nitrogenous manures.

In the case of arable soils, where the amount of phosphoric acid determined by this method falls below 01%, phosphatic manuring is essential for good crops.

The writer has found that many pasture soils containing less than.

In soils where the potash available to citric acid is less than.

Plants have been found to wither and die in sandy soils containing i a% of water, and in clay soils in which there was still present 8% of water.

In the operation of ploughing the furrow slice is separated from the soil below, and although in humid soils this layer may be left to settle by degrees, in semi-arid regions this loosened layer becomes.

The organisms do not carry on their work in soils deficient in air; hence the process is checked in water-logged soils.