In article ,
martin writes:
| On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 13:34:59 -0000, "Finance"
| wrote:
|
| Clay is good soil packed badly. I have heavy clay over yellow clay over blue
| clay. After 20 years the heavy clay has been improved. The yellow clay has
| not changed and I doubt if I will long enough to improve the blue clay.
| Incidentally blue clay was used to puddle the bottom of ponds, so you have
| an idea of it's use
|
| Everything you wanted to know about the microstructure of clays and
| were frightened to ask
| http://www.tam.uiuc.edu/courses/TAM2...y_minerals.pdf

Interesting. One thing that I didn't notice it saying explicitly
is that many nutrients bind to clay particles (but not to sand,
and only a little to peat), so soils with little clay leach very
badly and are often very low on nutrients.

Don't ask me the details, except that they are along the lines
of what the paper describes, and a bit more complicated.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.