On the connection between geology, meteorlogy and agriculture, as illustrated by the leading agricultural districts of Scotland

Abstract

It has long been a favourite axiom among writers on agriculture that a very close connection exists between geology and agriculture. Of course, in so far as the agricultural soil falls within the province of geology, there can be no question as to the connection between the two sciences. But what most agricultural writers lay down or infer is that a knowledge of rocks will give a knowledge of the soils produced by these rocks; that one rock produces a bad soil and another rock a good soil; that we may predict with some degree of certainty that a certain rock will always produce a certain soil, and so on. Now, there is no doubt that certain geological deposits will always be associated agriculturally with certain soils. It would be difficult to conceive, for instance, that sand would ever produce anything but a light, dry soil; gravel, a porous soil; glacial clay, a heavy, cold, and wet soil. Agricultural writers, however, often push their conclusions beyond such evident facts. The geological deposits I have just named are neither rocks in situ, nor are they necessarily immediately derived from the rocks in situ over which they lie. They consist of transported material, and bear perhaps no relation whatever to the immediately underlying rocks. The soils to which the agricultural writers specially refer as evidence that various rocks produce various soils, are soils produced by the disintegration of the immediately underlying rocks. A knowledge of geology is counselled the young agriculturist, in