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47speaker:s. To him the many contradictory views which ' he had comeacross In various text books were somewhat puzzling and he hoped thatthe lecturer would one day be able to give members to their benefit apractical demonstration in the field of ~ome of the points dealt with inhis address.Dr. Gallagher, in: reply, said :--Certain matters which speaken mentioned, I was glad to hearthem mention, because I was very conscious in coming along with thispaper to·night that I had left a large number of aspects out of it. Ihad to try and draw the linto somewhere and try and compress it within5;(lOO or 6,000 words, at most. One aspect of soils which I had in mind tomentioned, and left it out at the last minute was Dr. Anderson's pointconcerning the influence of vegetation. There had been quite a good dealof work done on that subject abroad and one finds it figuring .'\ gooddeal in text books dealing w.ith soil classification . . In connection withthe difference betwen the conifer and deciduous trees in this respect, oneis suppqsed to be impoverishing the wil by accelerating podsolisation andthe other to be retarding it. ,The conifer is injurious in this respect.The question of r,rassland in ordinary farming was raised. Thereis a case where you have a crop showing material influence in soil im·provement. I am inclined to attribute the effects of gras3 to the actionof its r00t system penetrating the soil and in producing an abundanceof organic matter of the same kind, capable of ameliorating the soil.There is another plant linked up with the conifer from the point ofview of ' podsolisation, and that is heather. The question of geologicalrelationship which my friend raised, I think I tried to do full justice toin the paper. The soil scientist for a number of years has been in·clined to look down on geology where soil is concerned. I had occasion,not more than ten years ago, to meet some of the prominent workers inEngland and practically none of them paid any att-ention to geology atall. Climatic processes dominated ~oil formation, according to them,but I do not think so.Geology has always figured rather prominently in any attempt atsoil classification in this country. Kilroy publi"hed a text book on thesubject and what I tried to do in this paper was to try and reconcileclimate with the establishment of ciifferent soil tyes.The President, in his few remarks, raised the question of thecontradictions one meets with, more particularly in popular books whichare very plentiful in .Britain nowadays on· farming, and the verdict whichI would be inclined to give in this matter is that these people are ~ llprobably quite right up to a point, but where they are wrong is in tryingto apply results to all soils which only apply to some. There was thequestion of manganese for instance. There are some ~oils which aredeficient in manganese, and in the same category would be trees whichdo not do so well without it, and the condition is curable here by apply·ing the manganese. It would be quite wrong to apply it in all cases-onlywhere it is deficient. I would like to emphasise the necessity for treatingsoils individually. There are tremendous differences between them andthe remarks of various other speakers showed that. The question of thefavourable effect of marl taken from the bogs is a case in point. Thereis a little benefit derived from marl on some soils and not on others. Onefinds it on some bogs and not on others.Then ther!; is the question of the value of plant indicators. I didnot try to decry this for a moment. but I would leave it entirely in thehands of the forester as something founded entirely on his own ex per·ience. blAt it may occur that the plant indicator can let you down [ nodd time, for after aU, it is only an indicator. There is a lot to besaid for the spade in the long run to verify what the plant indicator Nillnot tell you. A more ~imple expedient than the spade, I think, is theinch augur which carpenters use. It is very good for getting down toabout 2~ feet in the soil, though, of course, it is sometimes difficult to getit back now and again.One point I personally would like to see emerge out of this sum·mary J:'resentation of the soil position here to·night is that those engagedon forestry work would keep an eye out for peculiarities and notimmediately forget about them but take some steps to bring them tothe notice of people who might be interested in them from the soil