We
have written many textbooks on the subject that were soon supplemented
by better ones. The more the subject is studied, the more we appreciate
its far-reaching ramifications. We find it attaching itself to many
other subjects to which it seemed to have but remote relation in the
earlier stages of our study. In brief, we are now on the borderland of a
realization of the fact that agriculture is as broad as life and,
therefore, must embrace many other studies that have a close relation to
life.
=Relation to geology and other sciences.=--In the beginning, geology and
agriculture seemed far apart, but our closer study of agriculture has
revealed the fact that they are intimately related. It remained for
agriculture to lay the right emphasis upon geology. The study of the
composition and nature of the soil carried us at once to a study of its
origin and we found ourselves at the very door of geology. When we began
to inquire how the soil came to be where it is and what it is, we found
ourselves yearning for new and clearer lines of demarcation in science,
for we could scarcely distinguish between geology and physiography. We
soon traced our alluvial plains back to their upland origin, and then we
were compelled to explain their migration. This led us inevitably into
the realm of meteorology, for, if we omit meteorology, the chain is
broken and we lose our way in our search for the explanation we need.
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