Book Description

Soil science, with its roots in both the plant sciences and geology, first carne into being as a recognizable discipline in response to questions conceming plant growth. The chemical and physical characteristics of the soil as well as landscape processes that controlled those characteristics were of great interest to agronomists, horticulturists, geographers, geomorphologists, and geologists, some of whom drifted into one another's orbit and - over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-brought their experiences and talents together to form the nucleus of soil science. In those early years, a perception developed that soil science was simply an agricultural and edaphological science, which indeed it was in large measure. However pervasive and stubbom that perception was, there has been from the beginning a segment of the community of soil scientists that has maintained an interest in soil science "writ large." These soil scientists, while continuing to interact with agronomists, horticulturists, and foresters, have maintained communications, collaborations, and linkages with such disciplines as geology, geomorphology, geography, land use planning, and engineering. In the second half of the twentieth century, soil science has expanded its contacts with these nonagricultural disciplines, and now finds itself addressing a much wider range of problems, questions, and issues than it did in the first half of the century. In response to a growing demand for information, nonagriculturalland uses increasingly have been the focus of soil studies and of the development of soil interpretations and other decision tools for land users.