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At Fernando Po I found another valuable spider which preys upon cockroaches. When a cruiser was particularly afflicted by the blatta, a couple of these insects would effectually clear chests and drawers in a few days. The surface and subsoil are the usual sandy loam scattered with gravel of quartz and ironstone, and the spoil-banks showed blue and white quartz.
There is life in the ground; it goes into the seeds; and it also, when it is stirred up, goes into the man who stirs it. The hot sun on his back as he bends to his shovel and hoe, or contemplatively rakes the warm and fragrant loam, is better than much medicine.
If the soil should be a free loam and the capillarity therefore somewhat reduced, orange trees would probably be permanently productive. If the soil were very heavy, capillary rise might be too energetic and saturate the soil for some distance above the water-level. In a free soil without this danger the roots could approach the water as they find it desirable and be permanently supplied.
The ground where we stand was occupied by the feudal castle of Les Sires de Marly; although all traces of that stronghold disappeared centuries ago, the present owner of the land points out with pride that the extraordinary beauty of the trees around his house is owing to the fact that their roots reach deep down to the rich loam collected during centuries in the castle’s moat.
The soil is dark loam, as it is every where on spots reached by the inundation, while among the trees it is sandy, and not covered so densely with grass as elsewhere.
On a certain Saturday the girls saw Neale drive by early in the morning with a handsome pair of young horses, drawing loam to a part of the Parade ground which was to be re-seeded. The contractor had only recently bought these young horses from the West, but he trusted Neale with them, for he knew the boy was careful and seemed able to handle almost any kind of a team.
The soil is a strong loam, on a brick clay subsoil, in which there is little or no lime, although the stony clays, which form the subsoil in a great part of the district, abound in it, containing from twenty to thirty per cent. of carbonate of lime.
Against this hypothesis it must be stated that no evidence whatever was found of more than a single deposit of sandy loam, although the exposures are good; but perhaps were an examination made by a competent geologist some such evidence might be developed. There is one fact that should not be lost sight of in the discussion, viz, the very low elevation of the ditch above the river.
The soil is a loose, black loam, which the rain converts into mud, through which I have to trundle, wooden scraper in hand; and I not infrequently have to carry the bicycle through the worst places. The morning is sultry, requiring good roads and a breeze-creating pace for agreeable going.
"I guess this is when little Weary Willie walks home!" he groaned. "Confound the luck!" Suddenly his gaze became riveted on a peculiar mark on the soft dry loam: the imprint of a large paw like that of a cat rising hastily, he examined the ground all around the place and discovered many similar tracks. "It's a bobcat!" he exclaimed aloud. "A big bobcat or a lynx!
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