_Practical Utility of Chemical Soil-Analysis; Permanent Value_ vs. _Immediate Productiveness_.—In many existing treatises so much emphasis is given to the alleged proofs of the inutility of chemical soil examination in particular, that a special controversion of these arguments seems necessary, in connection with a detailed statement of what can, and in part has been, done in that direction. Hence the often-repeated allusion, in the sequel, to points bearing on this question. Hence, also, the detailed discussion of many points which in most agricultural publications are given only passing notice. _In all these discussions the difference between_ the ascertainment of the _permanent-productive value of soils_, as against that of their _immediate producing capacity_, must be strictly kept in view. The former interests vitally the permanent settler or farmer; the latter concerns the immediate outlook for crop production, the “Düngerzustand” of the Germans. The methods for the ascertainment of these two factors are wholly distinct, even though the results and their causes are in most cases intimately correlated. The failure to observe this distinction accounts for a great deal of the obloquy and reproach that has in the past so often been heaped upon chemical soil-analysis and its advocates. PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL CONDITIONS OF PLANT GROWTH. While it is true that plants cannot form their substance or develop healthy growth in the absence or scarcity of the chemical ingredients mentioned on page xxxi of this volume, it is also true that they cannot use these unless the physical conditions of normal vegetation are first fulfilled. Both sets of conditions are intrinsically equally important and exacting as to their fulfilment; and the farmers’ task is to bring about this concurrence to the utmost extent possible. The chemical ingredients of plant-food can, however, be artificially supplied in the form of fertilizers, should they be deficient in the soil; but as has been shown in the preceding pages, it is not always possible to correct, within the limits of farm economy, physical defects existing in the land. Hence, however important is the natural richness of the soil in plant-food, _the first care should always be given to the ascertainment of the proper physical conditions in the soil, subsoil and substrata_. Without these, oftentimes, no amount of cultivation, fertilization and irrigation is effective in assuring profitable cultural results.