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Learning iOS UI Development Implement complex iOS
user interfaces with ease using Swift 1st Edition D'Areglia
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): D'areglia, Yari
ISBN(s): 9781785288197, 1785288199
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 2.96 MB
Year: 2015
Language: english
Learning iOS UI Development

Implement complex iOS user interfaces with ease

using Swift

Yari D'areglia

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Learning iOS UI Development

Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy
of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is
sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt
Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages
caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: December 2015

Production reference: 1181215

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78528-819-7
www.packtpub.com
 Credits

Author Project Coordinator

Yari D'areglia Judie Jose

Reviewers Proofreader
Nicola Armellini Safis Editing
Christian Stehno
Indexer
Commissioning Editor Monica Ajmera Mehta
Nadeem N. Bagban
Graphics
Acquisition Editor Jason Monteiro
Manish Nainani
Production Coordinator
Content Development Editor Nilesh Mohite
Rashmi Suvarna
Cover Work
Technical Editor Nilesh Mohite
Humera Shaikh

Copy Editor
Shruti Iyer
 About the Author

Yari D'areglia is a developer with 15 years of experience in software architecture

and development. During the last 4 years, he built successful iOS and OS X
applications for developers as well as the mainstream public.

Yari, together with Nicola Armellini, founded Jumpzero, a company based in Italy
that released countless mobile, desktop, and web applications.

Currently, he is employed as a senior iOS engineer at Neato Robotics, a company

based in Silicon Valley, where he works on the communication between robots and
iOS devices.

Yari writes at www.ThinkAndBuild.it, a blog focused on iOS development with a

strong focus on user interface development.

You can reach him on Twitter at @bitwaker.

I'd like to thank Nicola Armellini for taking the time to review this
book and teaching me countless things about my work and life.
Thanks, brother!
Special thanks go to my future wife, Lorena. She was extremely
supportive and accepted all my "I'm busy, honey; I need to finish this
chapter..." with a gentle smile. You are awesome; I love you.
Thanks, mom, your ragù and your words were both of vital
importance during the writing of the last few chapters. You're a
strong woman, and I'm proud to be your son.
Many thanks and appreciation go to everyone who contributed to
the production of this book: Manish, Ritika, Rashmi, and Humera.
Thank you for being so kind and professional.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my greatest friends, Simo,
Luke, and Stefano (Panzer). Our next role-playing session is on its way.
 About the Reviewers

Nicola Armellini is a designer from Italy who constantly crosses the boundary
between technology and communication.

First approaching the industry through the video game medium, he partnered
with Yari D'Areglia and founded Jumpzero, specializing in the user experience
and interface design of OS X and iOS applications. At the same time, Nicola helped
grow the audience of Yari's Think & Build blog by editing and reviewing his in-depth
tutorial articles.

A fan of redistributing knowledge and making it accessible, he taught his craft and
its implications in terms of marketing and communication as a lecturer at European
Institute of Design in Milan.

As a side project slowly turned into his main focus, Nicola started fiddling with virtual
reality and exploring new ways of interacting with machines and CG environments,
questioning the status quo of how information is presented and manipulated.

He now studies to become an aerospace engineer and can be found at

nicolaarmellini.com.

Christian Stehno studied computer science and got his diploma from the
University of Oldenburg in 2000. Since then, he has worked on different topics in
computer science. As researcher on theoretical computer science at University,
Christian switched to embedded system design at a research institute later on. In
2010, he started his own company, CoSynth, which develops embedded systems and
intelligent cameras for industrial automation. In addition, Christian is a long-time
member of the Irrlicht 3D Engine developer team.
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To my father, Max.
 Table of Contents
Preface vii
Chapter 1: UI Fundamentals 1
Exploring windows 1
The contents of windows 2
Configuring windows 2
Working with views 5
Defining the view's geometry 6
The bounds property 7
The frame property 7
The center property 8
UI hierarchy and views inheritance 8
Managing with the hierarchy 9
View and subview visibility 11
Hierarchy events 11
Notes about debug 13
Hands-on code 13
View drawing and life cycle 15
View controllers and views 16
Summary 18
Chapter 2: UI Components Overview – UIKit 19
Exploring text elements 19
Presenting text with UILabel 20
Receiving user input with UITextField 21
Multiline text with UITextView 23
Notes about the keyboard 25
Keyboard events 26
Keyboard configuration 26
Exploring buttons and selectors 27
UIButton and user interaction 27

[i]
Table of Contents

The target-action pattern 28

Boolean selection with UISwitch 29
Control customization 29
Selecting values with UISlider 30
Control customization 30
User choices through UISegmentedControl 31
Control customization 31
Selecting values with UIPickerView and UIDatePicker 33
Updating values with UIStepper 35
Control customization 36
View-based components 36
Showing progress with UIProgressView 36
Control customization 36
Working with UIActivityIndicatorView 37
Control customization 37
Introducing UIImageView and UIImage 37
Introducing UIScrollView 39
Managing and presenting structured data 41
Introducing UITableView 41
Introducing UICollectionView 43
The UIAppearance protocol 44
Hands-on code 45
Summary 46
Chapter 3: Interface Builder, XIB, and Storyboard 47
Interface Builder 47
An overview of the editor 48
Working with XIB files 49
Managing user interfaces with Storyboards 51
Connecting user interfaces with your code 51
Implementing navigation with Storyboard and segues 53
The unwind segue 55
Hands-on code 56
Summary 59
Chapter 4: Auto Layout 61
How Auto Layout works 61
Xcode and Auto Layout 62
Practical introduction to constraints 65
Xcode helpers 68
Intrinsic content size 70
Independence from screen size 72
Updating constraints programmatically 74

[ ii ]
 Table of Contents

Working with Auto Layout programmatically 77

Initializing the views 77
Adding constraints 78
Working with multiple views 80
Relations between views 82
Summary 83
Chapter 5: Adaptive User Interfaces 85
UI definition with size classes 85
User interface's traits 87
Trait collection and trait environment 87
Working with trait collections 89
Size classes and Interface Builder 92
Hands-on code 92
Image assets and size classes 96
Working with Dynamic Type 97
Configurable text size 97
Exploring text styles 98
Improving Auto Layout structures with UIStackView 102
Setting up UIStackView 102
UIStackView and adaptive layouts 105
Summary 106
Chapter 6: Layers and Core Animation 107
Exploring layers 107
Layers and views 107
The content of a layer 108
Flat layer 108
The contents property 109
The layer delegate 109
Layer subclassing 110
Contents properties 111
The layer geometry 112
The layers hierarchy 114
The appearance of layers 115
Working with core animation 116
Layers and animations 116
Implicit animations 117
Properties animations 117
Initializing and launching the animation 118
Keeping the animation result 119
Handling timing and repetitions 120
Animations group 122
Keyframe animations 123

[ iii ]
Table of Contents

Removing animations from a layer 124

View animations 125
Summary 126
Chapter 7: UI Interactions – Touches and Gestures 127
Events and touches 127
Touch phases 128
The UITouch class 129
Responder chain 130
Hit-testing 130
Responding to touch events 131
Gestures and gesture recognizers 133
Working with gesture recognizers 134
Gesture recognizer states 135
Hands-on code 136
Summary 137
Chapter 8: How to Build Custom Controls 139
The Thermostat control 139
Designing a custom control 140
The UIControl class 141
Implementing the ThermostatSlider control 142
Control initialization 143
Drawing the control 143
Prototyping using playground 144
Drawing the borders 145
Drawing the track 146
Drawing the handle 146
Updating the control value 147
Updating borders 148
Updating the track 148
Updating the handle 150
Touch tracking 150
Beginning tracking 151
Continuing tracking 152
Ending tracking 152
Sending actions 153
Customizing the control with UI Appearance 154
Summary 154
Chapter 9: Introduction to Core Graphics 155
Drawing on the graphic context 155
How drawing works 156
Handling the graphic states 157
The coordinate system 157

[ iv ]
 Table of Contents

UIKit helpers 158

Drawing with fill and stroke options 158
Drawing with blending modes 159
Drawing with paths 159
Drawing with paths 161
Path initialization 161
Building a path 162
Drawing the path 164
Summary 165
Index 167

[v]
 Preface
Through this comprehensive one-stop guide, you'll get to grips with the entire UIKit
framework and creating modern user interfaces for your iOS devices using Swift.
Starting with an overview of the iOS drawing system and available tools, you will
learn how to use these technologies to create adaptable layouts and custom elements
for your applications. You'll then be introduced to other topics such as animation
and code drawing with core graphics, which will give you all the knowledge you
need to create astonishing user interfaces. By the time you reach the end of this book,
you will have a solid foundation in iOS user interface development and have gained
a valuable insight into the process of building firm and complex UIs.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, UI Fundamentals, starts by describing how interfaces are structured and
drawn and then presents some really important elements, such as windows and views.

Chapter 2, UI Components Overview – UIKit, is an overview of the UIKit framework.

It's a guided tour through the main UIKit elements, from their usage inside an app to
their customization.

Chapter 3, Interface Builder, XIB, and Storyboard, gives an overview of the Xcode tools
used to set up and build UIs.

Chapter 4, Auto Layout, is the key to understanding how Auto Layout works. It
describes in detail how to create dynamic layouts.

Chapter 5, Adaptive User Interfaces, discusses a very important topic: how to improve
user experience and provide interfaces that can adapt to different orientations, screen
sizes, and user preferences using the latest advancements introduced with iOS 8 and 9.

[ vii ]
Preface

Chapter 6, Layers and Core Animation, focuses on CALayer in the context of

core animation. It illustrates how to achieve animations in iOS using two
different approaches.

Chapter 7, UI Interactions – Touches and Gestures, analyzes the main way users
interact with UIs—through touch. It answers questions such as "how is this
information passed from the screen to the views?" and "how can we build an
engaging UI using gestures?"

Chapter 8, How to Build Custom Controls, explains how to build custom controls after
learning how these controls work in the previous chapters.

Chapter 9, Introduction to Core Graphics, is a final quick overview of the core graphics
(Quartz 2D) framework to show you how to perform custom drawings with iOS.

What you need for this book

In order to be able to run the code examples, you need a Mac computer with OS X
and Xcode installed. The suggested minimal version is OS X 10.11.1 and Xcode 7.1.

Who this book is for

This easy-to-follow guide is perfect for beginner-level iOS developers who want to
become proficient in user interface development. It is also useful for experienced
iOS developers who need a complete overview of this broad topic all in one place
without having to consult various sources.

Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different
kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of
their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions,
pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows:
"The properties that define the view geometry are frame, bounds, and center and
they are configured using the geometry structures you just saw."

[ viii ]
 Preface

A block of code is set as follows:

// Define a point
let point = CGPoint(x: 20, y: 10)

// Define a size
let size = CGSize(width: 20, height: 10)

// Define a rect using size and point

let rect_A = CGRect(origin: point, size: size)

// Define a rect using x, y, width and height data

let rect_B = CGRect(x: 15, y: 10, width: 100, height: 30)

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the
relevant lines or items are set in bold:
enum UIUserInterfaceSizeClass : Int {
case Unspecified
case Compact
case Regular
}

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the
screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Create a
new asset by clicking on the + symbol and selecting New Image Asset."

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about
this book—what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps
us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply e-mail feedback@packtpub.com, and mention

the book's title in the subject of your message.

[ ix ]
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
all except one thing—temper. She was fire and powder there. A
flash, an explosion—then she was sobbing for forgiveness in your
arms. That was Little Sister.
“I can’t see where in the world she gets her temper from,”
Grandmother Rutherford said when two-year-old Little Sister slapped
her squarely in the face one day and then hung sobbing around the
old lady’s neck as if the blow had broken her own heart.
“Col. Rutherford,” she would add impressively, “this child ought to be
spanked till she is conquered.”
“Don’t do it, mother,” said Uncle John, while Little Sister gave him a
grateful look through her tears; “don’t do it; that is not the way to
train race colts. A conquering, your way, would spoil her. She will
need all of that temper, if it is brought under control, to get through
life with, and land anywhere near the wire first. Besides, with her
sensitiveness, don’t you see she is suffering now more than if we
had punished her? If she were a plug, now, she would slap you and
never be sorry till you made her sorry with a switch. But conscience
beats hickory, and gentleness is away ahead of blows.”
And Uncle John would catch the two-year-old up and take her out to
see the colts. At sight of these she would forget all other trouble.
Her love for horses was as deep in her as the Rutherford blood.
When she saw the colts it was comical to see the great burst of
sunshiny laughter that spread all over her conscience-stricken face,
while two big tears—such big ones as only little heart-broken two-
year-olds can originate—were rolling slowly down her nose.
“Oh, Uncle John,” she would say gleefully, “now, ain’t they just too
sweet for anything? Do let me get down and hug them, every one.”
And Uncle John would let her if he had to catch every one himself.
The clear-cut way she talked English reminds me that there were
two things about Little Sister that always astonished me—her
intellect and her great sense of motherhood. I could readily see how
she inherited the first, but could never understand how so tiny a
thing had such a great big mother-heart. She loved everything little
—everything born on the farm. The fact that anything in hair, hide or
feathers had arrived was an occasion of jollification to her.
“Oh, do let me see the dear little thing,” would be the first thing
from Little Sister that greeted the announcement. And she generally
saw it; at least, if Uncle John was around. It is scarcely necessary to
add that during the spring of the year, on a farm as large as the
Rutherford place, she was kept in one continual state of happy
excitement.
One day they missed her from the house, and Uncle John quickly
“tracked” her to the cow barn, for it occurred to him he had only the
day before shown her the Short-horn’s latest edition—a big, double-
jointed, ugly, hungry male calf, who slept all day in the bedded stall
like a young Hercules, and only waked up long enough to wrinkle his
huge nose around and mentally make the remark the Governor of
North Carolina is said to have made to the Governor of South
Carolina. But Little Sister had declared he was “perfectly lovely.” That
is where Uncle John found her. She had climbed over the high stall
gate, unaided, and, after becoming acquainted, she had given young
Hercules, as a propitiary offering, her own beautiful string of beads
and placed them around his tawny neck.
“Come out of there, you little rascal,” laughed Uncle John. “What do
you see pretty about that big, ugly calf?”
“Oh, Uncle John,” sighed Little Sister, “I’m so sorry for him—he isn’t
pretty, to be sure—and so I have given him my beads. But he has a
lovely curly head,” she added encouragingly, “and he seems to be
such a healthy child.”
On another occasion they missed Little Sister about night. Everybody
started out in alarm. Grandma found her first, coming from the
brood-sow’s lot.
“Where in the world have you been, darling?” asked Grandma, as
she picked her up.
“Playing with the little yesterday pigs,” she said. “And, Grandma, I
ought to have come home sooner, but I kissed one of the cunningest
of the little pigs good-night, and all the others looked so hurt, and
squealed so because I didn’t kiss them, too, I just had to catch every
one of them and kiss them before they would go to sleep. Indeed, I
did.”
Inheritance had played a Hamlet’s part in Little Sister’s make-up.
Most children crow, and babble, and lisp, and talk in divers and
different languages before they learn to talk English, while some
never learn at all. But not so with Little Sister. The first word she
ever attempted was perfectly pronounced. The first sentence she put
together was grammatically correct. The correctness of her
language, for one so small, made it sound so quaint that I often had
to laugh at its quaintness, while her deep earnestness and intensity
but added to its originality.
And she picked up so many things from Uncle John. Else where did
she get this: Pete was a little darkey on the farm whose chief
business was to entertain Little Sister when everything else failed.
Pete’s repertoire consisted of all the funny things a monkey ever did,
but his two star performances were “racking” like Deacon Jones’ old
claybank pacer, and “playin’ possum.” Little Sister never tired of
having Pete do these two. And it was comical. Everybody knew
Deacon Jones, with his angular, sedate, solemn way of riding, and
the unearthly, double-shuffling, twisting, cork-screw gait of his old
pacer. The ludicrous gait of the old pacer struck Pete early in life,
and he soon learned to get down on his all-fours and make Deacon
Jones’ old horse ashamed of himself any day. The imitation was so
perfect that Uncle John used to call in his friends to see the show,
which consisted of Pete doing the racking act, while Little Sister,
astraddle of his back, with one hand in his shirt collar and the other
wielding a hickory switch, played the Deacon. One evening, as the
company was taking in the performance, and Pete, now thoroughly
leg-weary, had paced around for the twentieth time, Little Sister was
seen to whack him in the flanks very vigorously and exclaim: “Come,
pace along there, you son-of-a-gun, or I’ll put a head on you!”
Uncle John nearly fell out of his chair. Only a week before he had
made that same remark to Pete for being a little slow about bringing
in his shaving water. But he didn’t know that Little Sister had heard
him.
The spring Little Sister was three years old the Colonel came in to
breakfast one morning with a cloud on his brow. It was a great
disappointment to him—old Betty, his saddle mare, the mare he had
ridden for fifteen years, “the best bred mare in Tennessee,” had
brought into the world a most unpromising offspring. “It is weak,
puny and no ’count, John,” he said to his son; “deformed, or
something, in its front legs, knuckles over and can’t stand up, the
most infernally curby-legged thing I ever saw.”
“That’s too bad,” remarked Uncle John, as he helped himself to
another battercake. “I’ll go out after breakfast and look at the poor
little thing.”
“No use,” remarked the Colonel gravely, “it’s deformed—can’t stand
up; and out of compassion for it I’ve ordered Jim to knock it in the
head. It’ll be better dead than alive.”
Little Sister, with her big, inquisitive eyes, had been taking it all in,
as she gravely ate her oatmeal and cream. But the last remark of
Grandpa stopped the spoon half way to her mouth. The next instant,
unobserved, she had slipped out of her high-chair and flown to the
barn.
“I tell you, John,” remarked the old Colonel, “I sometimes think this
breeding horses is pure lottery. To think of old Betty, the gamest,
speediest mare I ever rode, having such a colt as that; and by
Brown Hal, too—the best young pacing horse I ever saw. It makes
me feel bad to think of it. Now, take old Betty’s pedigree——”
But the old Colonel never got any further, for piercing screams from
Little Sister came from the barn. Uncle John glanced at her empty
chair, turned pale with fright, kicked over the two chairs which stood
in his way, then his favorite setter dog that blockaded the door, and
rushed hatless to the barn. There a pathetic sight met his eyes. A
negro stood in old Betty’s stall door with an axe in his hand. In a far
corner, on some straw, lay a sorry-looking, helpless colt. But it was
not alone, for a three-year-old tot knelt beside it, and held the colt’s
head in her lap while she shook her tiny fist at the black executioner,
and screamed with grief and anger:
“You shan’t kill this baby colt—you shan’t—you shan’t! Don’t you
come in here—don’t you come! How dare you?” And, child though
she was, the flash of her keen, blue Rutherford eyes, like the bright
sights of the muzzle of two derringers, had awed the negro in the
doorway and stopped him in hesitancy and confusion.
“Go away, Jim,” said Uncle John, as he took in the situation. “Come,
Little Sister,” he said, “let’s go back to Grandma.”
But for once in her life Uncle John had no influence over the little
girl. She was indignant, shocked, grieved. She fairly blazed through
her tears and sobs. She would never speak to Grandpa again as long
as she lived. She intended her very self to kill Jim just as soon as
she “got big enough,” and as for Uncle John, she would never even
love him again if he did not promise her the baby colt should not be
killed.
“Poor little thing,” she said, as she put her arm around its neck and
her tears fell over its big, soft eyes; “God just sent you last night,
and they want to kill you to-day.”
Uncle John brushed a tear away himself, and stooped over and
critically examined the little filly—for such it was. Little Sister
watched him intently for, in her opinion Uncle John knew everything
and could do anything. The tears were still rolling down her cheeks,
as Uncle John looked up quickly and said in his boyish, jolly way:
“Hello, Little Sister, this little filly is all right! Deformed be hanged!
She’s as sound as a hound’s tooth—just weak in her front tendons.
I’ll soon fix that. No sir, they don’t kill her, Mousey”—Uncle John
called her Mousey when he wanted her to laugh.
The tears gave way to a crackling little laugh. “Well, ain’t that just
too sweet for anything; and Oh, Uncle John, ain’t she just sweet
enough to eat?” And Little Sister danced about, the happiest child in
the world.
And what fun it was to help Uncle John “fix her up,” as he called it.
She brought him the cotton-batting herself and watched him gravely
as he made stays for the weak forelegs, and straightened out the
crooked little ankles. Finally, when he called Jim, and made him take
the little filly up in his arms and carry her into another stall where
old Betty stood and held her up to get her first breakfast, the little
girl could hardly contain herself. In a burst of generosity she begged
Jim’s pardon, and told her Uncle John confidentially that she didn’t
intend to kill Jim at all, now; but was going to give him a pair of her
Grandpa’s old boots instead.
In return for this, Jim promptly named the filly “Little Sister,” a
compliment which tickled the original Little Sister very much.
But having said the little filly was no-’count, the old Colonel stuck to
it—refused to notice it or take any stock in it.
“Po’ little thing,” he would say a month after it was able to pace
around without help from its stays—“po’ little thing; what a pity they
didn’t kill it!”
But Uncle John and Little Sister nursed it, petted it, and helped old
Betty raise it; and the next spring they were rewarded by seeing it
develop into a delicate-looking, but exceedingly blood-like, nervous,
highstrung little miss. Grandpa would surely relent now, but not so.
Prejudice, next to ignorance, is our greatest enemy, and the old
Colonel looked at the yearling and remarked:
“Po’ little thing—that old Betty should have played off on me like
that!” And he turned indifferently on his heel and walked away,
whereupon both the filly and the little girl turned up their noses
behind the old man’s back.
In the fall that the little filly was three years old the county pacing
stakes came off. A thousand dollars were hung up at the end of that
race, but greater still, the county’s reputation was at the feet of the
conqueror. The old Colonel had entered a big pacing fellow in the
race, named Princewood, and it looked like nothing could beat him.
The big fellow had been carefully trained for two seasons by a local
driver, and had already cost his owner more than he was worth. “But
it’s the reputation I am after, sir,” the Colonel would say to the driver
—“the honor of the thing. My farm has already taken it twice; I want
to take it again.”
Now, Uncle John was quite a whip himself, and the old Colonel had
failed to notice how all the fall he had been giving Betty’s filly extra
attention, with a hot brush on the road now and then. The old man,
wrapped up as he was in Princewood’s wonderful speed, had even
failed to notice that Uncle John had frequently called for his light
road wagon, and he and Little Sister, now six years old, had taken
delightful spins down the shady places in the by-ways, where
nobody could see them, behind the high-strung little filly, and that
often, at supper, when Grandpa would begin to brag about
Princewood’s wonderful speed, Uncle John would wink at Little
Sister, and that little miss would have to cram her mouth full of
peach preserves to keep from laughing out at the table and being
sent supperless to bed.
There was a big crowd on the day of the race—it looked like all the
county was there. The field was a large one, for the purse was rich
and the honor richer—“and Princewood is a prime favorite,” chuckled
the old Colonel, as he stood holding a little girl’s hand near the
grandstand.
But the little girl was very quiet. For once in her life “the cat had her
tongue.” Now, anybody half educated in child ways would have seen
this tot clearly expected something to happen. If the old Colonel
hadn’t been so busy talking about Princewood he might have seen it,
too.
The bell had already rung twice, and all the drivers and horses were
thought to be in, and were preparing to score down, when a
newcomer arrived, who attracted a good deal of attention. Instead
of a sulky, he sat in a spider-framed, four-wheeled gentleman’s road
cart, at least four seconds slow for a race like that. Instead of a cap
he wore a soft felt hat, and in lieu of a jacket, a cutaway business
suit. He nodded familiarly to the starting judge and paced his
nervous-looking little filly up the stretch.
“Who is that coming into this race in that kind of a thing?” asked the
old Colonel of a farmer near by—for the old man’s eyesight was
failing him.
“Why, Colonel, don’t you know your own son? That’s Cap’n John
Rutherford,” said the farmer.
“The devil you say!” shouted the excitable old gentleman. “Why,
damn it, has John gone crazy?” and he jumped over a bench and
rushed excitedly up the stretch to head off the driver of the little filly.
“In the name of heaven, John,” he shouted, “are you really going to
drive in this race?”
Captain John nodded and smiled.
“And what’s that po’ little thing you’ve got there?”
“It’s Little Sister, father,” said Captain John good naturedly. “I’m just
driving her to please the little girl. I want to see how she’ll act in
company, anyway.”
The old Colonel was thunderstruck. “Why, you’re a fool,” he blurted
out. “They’ll lose you both in this race. For heaven’s sake, John, get
off the track and don’t disgrace old Betty and the farm this way. Po’
little no-’count thing,” he added, sympathetically, “it’ll kill ’er to go
round there once!”
The Captain laughed. “It’s just for a little fun, father—all to please
the baby. It’s her pet, you know. I’ll just trail them the first heat, and
if she’s too soft I’ll pull out. But she’s better than you think,” he
added indifferently. “I’ve been driving her a good bit of late.”
The old Colonel expostulated—he even threatened—but Captain
John only laughed and drove off. Then the old Colonel repented, and
it was comically pathetic to hear him call out in his earnest way:
“John! Oh, John! Don’t tell anybody it’s old Betty’s colt, will you?”
Captain John laughed. “I’ll bet ten to one,” he chuckled to himself,
“he’ll be telling it before I do.”
And the little filly—when she got into company she seemed to be
positively gay. She forgot all about herself, threw off all her nervous
ways, and went away with a rush that almost took Captain John’s
breath. He pulled her quickly back. “Ho, ho! little miss,” he said, “if
you do that again you’ll give us dead away,” and he looked slyly
around to see if anybody had seen it. But they were all too busy
chasing Princewood. That horse clearly had the speed of the crowd.
And so Uncle John trailed behind, the very last of the long
procession, with the little filly fighting for her head all the way.
Nobody seemed to notice them at all—nobody but a little girl, who
clung to her grandpa’s middle finger and wondered, in her childish
faith, if the mighty Uncle John—the Uncle John who knew everything
and could do everything, and who never missed his mark in all his
life, was going, really going, to tumble now from his lofty throne in
her childish mind? And with him Little Sister, too.
She got behind Grandpa. Princewood paced in way ahead. She stuck
her fingers in her ears so she couldn’t hear the shouts, but took
them out in time to hear Grandpa say, “Well, I thought John had
more sense,” as that gentleman, after satisfying himself that he was
not distanced, paced slowly in.
This made Little Sister think it was all up with Uncle John. She went
after a glass of lemonade, but really to cry in the dark hall behind
the grandstand and wipe her eyes on the frills of the pretty little
petticoat Grandma had made her just to wear to the fair. It was too
bad.
When she got back Grandpa was gone. He was over in the cooling
stable, talking to Uncle John.
“John,” he said solemnly, “don’t disgrace old Betty any more. I’m
downright sorry for the po’ little thing. I’m afraid she’ll fall dead in
her tracks,” he added.
Captain John flushed, “Well, let her drop,” he said, “but if I’m not
mistaken you’ll hear something drop yourself.”
The old Colonel turned on his heels in disgust.
But Uncle John meant business this time. He changed his cart for a
sulky, and again they got the word. Gradually, carefully, he gave the
little filly her head. Steadily, gracefully, she went by them one by
one, until at the half she was just behind Princewood, who seemed
to be claiming all the grandstand’s attention. The field left behind! If
Princewood wins this heat the race is over!
“Princewood’s got ’em, Colonel!” exclaimed a countryman to the old
man. “They’s nothin’ that kin head ’im!” and “Princewood wins!
Princewood wins!” as they headed into the stretch.
And then something dropped. Little Sister felt the reins relax, and a
kindly chirrup came from Uncle John. In a twinkling she was up with
the big fellow, half frightened at her own speed, half doubting, like a
prima donna when her sweet voice first fills a great hall, that it was
really she who had done it.
“Princewood! Princewood!” shouted the crowd around their idol, the
Colonel. “Princewood will break the record!” from partisans who
knew more about plow horses than race horses.
The old Colonel arose in happy anticipation—and then, as his trained
eye really took in the situation, his jaw dropped. What was that little
bay streak that had collared so gamely his big horse? Who was the
quiet-looking gentleman in the soft felt hat, handling the reins like a
veteran driver? His son John was in a cart—this driver was in a sulky.
“Who the devil—” he started to say, when somebody clinging to his
finger cried out: “Look! Look! Grandpa! It’s Little Sister. Ain’t she just
too sweet for anything?”
And the next instant the little filly laughed in the big pacer’s face, as
much as to say, “You big duffer, have you quit already?” And then,
like a homing pigeon loosed for the first time, she sailed away from
the field.
“Princewood! Princewood will break the record!” shouted a man who
hadn’t caught on and was yelling for Princewood while looking at the
champion pumpkin in the window of the agricultural hall.
And then the old Colonel lost his head and, I am sorry to say, the
most of his religion, for he jumped up on a bench and shouted so
loud the town crier heard him in the court-house window, a mile
away: “Damn Princewood! Damn the record! It’s Little Sister! Little
Sister! Old Betty’s filly—my old mare’s colt!”
And then Uncle John laughed till he nearly fell out of the sulky. “I
said he’d be telling all about her first,” he said, while a little
innocent-looking tot plucked the old man by the coat-tail long
enough to get him to stop telling the crowd all about the marvelous
breeding of the wonderful filly, as she naively remarked: “And the
little thing did play off on you sure enough, didn’t she, Grandpa?”
The crowd laughed, and Grandma picked her up, kissed her, and
shouted: “And here’s the girl that saved her, gentlemen—the
smartest girl in Tennessee—and she’s got more horse sense than her
old granddaddy!”
There was one more heat, of course; but it was only a procession,
and those behind cannot swear to this day which way Little Sister
went.
John Trotwood Moore.
 A History of the Hals
By John Trotwood Moore.

CAPT. THOMAS GIBSON.

Owner of Gibson’s Tom Hal and John Dilliard.

CHAPTER I.
THE PACING RACE HORSE.
 Full-muscled, clean, clear-cut, without a flaw,
Deep-chested—shallow where the quick flanks draw—
Round-footed, flat and flinty in the bone,
Eyes full and flashing, as the opal stone,
Neck like the deep-grooved classic column’s ply—
Massive at base, tap’ring towards the sky,
Ears thin and slender, velvet-pointed, fine
As the unbursted leaflets of the columbine.
Shoulders well back, slanting, thin and strong,
Ribbed close as steel, where girders run along;
Quarters long and massive, rubber-hard and round,
Quick in the stride, but quicker in rebound—
Back like the beam that held Pantheon’s dome—
Gods, give the word, and see this horse come home!
JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE.

The race horse has come, by common consent to represent all that
is graceful and grand in the animal kingdom. The culmination of
perfected strength and speed, courage and intelligence, he stands,
nevertheless, the model of patience, gentleness and forbearance.
How wonderful it seems that in this dumb creature, whose mental
gifts, compared to man’s, are as a clay bed to a bank of violets, yet
has he reached, through the misty channels of mere instinct, a
physical perfection and often a moral excellence which his maker
and molder may never attain! He is amiable in spite of force and
desperate races, and often blows and cruelty; he is gentle,
notwithstanding a training tending to make him a whirlwind of wrath
and a tornado of tempests; he is honest in spite of the dishonesty of
those around him and docile and contented despite the fact that
there slumbers within him like sleeping bolts in a flying cloud the
spirit of madness gathered from the nerve granaries of a long line of
unnumbered ancestors.
A regiment with his courage would ride over the guns of a Balaklava;
a state with his honesty would need no criminal laws; give scholars
his patience, and the stars would be their playthings; imbued with
his power of endurance, the weakest nation would tunnel mountains
as a child a sand hill, build cities as a dreamer builds castles, and
shoulder the world with a laugh. To one who sees him as he is, and
loves him for his intrinsic greatness, he is all this and more. Man’s
honest servant, dumb exemplar, truest helper, best friend.
In his master’s hour of recreation, he is the joyful spirit that whirls
him, at the swish of a whip, along the dizzy course where the
whistling winds sing their warning. In his hours of stern reality, when
fortunes hang on his hoof beats and fame stands balanced on the
wire that ends the home-stretch, he is the embodiment of power
and dignity, the champion of might and the god of victory. And
finally, in his gentler moods, he is the faithful servant of the stubble
and the plow, the gentle guardian of the family turn-out, who hauls
the laughing children along the by-ways amid the sweet grasses,
where the sunshine and the zephyrs play. Out from the past, the
dim, bloody, shifting past, came this noble animal, the horse, side by
side with man, fighting with him the battles of progress, bearing
with him the burdens of the centuries. Down the long, hard road,
through flint or mire, through swamp or sand, wherever there has
been a footprint, there also will be seen a hoof-print. They have
been one and inseparable, the aim and the object, the means and
the end. And if the time shall ever come, as some boastingly
declare, when the one shall breed away from the other, the puny
relic of a once perfect manhood will not live long enough to trace the
record of it on the tablet of time.
The greatest distinct family of horses that has ever lived is the Hal
family of pacers, a distinctively Tennessee product, originating in
that peculiar geological formation known as the Middle Basin—the
bluegrass region of Tennessee. To understand the greatness of this
family of horses—now known throughout the world, wherever speed
and endurance has a name—it is only necessary to publish the
following table of world-records held by them. These records have
all been won in the last quarter of a century, the remarkable fact
being that before that time these horses lived only for the plow, the
saddle or the wheel, and that nearly all of them are sons and
daughters or descendants of one horse—a roan, known locally as
Gibson’s Tom Hal, from the fact that Capt. Thomas Gibson, a
gentleman of the old school, then living on his estate in Maury
County, Tenn., and now the efficient secretary of the Nashville,
Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway Library, first reclaimed him from
obscurity and brought him to the county where his greatness was
recognized.
These world records, the choicest in the harness world, are held to-
day, August, 1905, by the descendants of the old roan pacer:
1. First horse to go a mile in harness in 2 minutes, Star
Pointer, 1:59 1/4.
2. Fastest 4-year-old mare, The Maid, 2:05 1/4.
3. Fastest green performer (1905), Walter Direct, 2:05 3/4.
4. Fastest heat in a race, stallion, Star Pointer, 2:00 1/2.
5. Fastest heat in a race, mare, Fanny Dillard, 2:03 3/4.
6. Fastest first heat in a race, Star Pointer, 2:02.
7. Fastest third heat in a race, Star Pointer, 2:00 1/2.
8. Fastest fifth heat in a race, The Maid, 2:05 3/4.
9. Fastest two heats in race (Dariel and) Fanny Dillard,
2:03 3/4, 2:05.
10. Fastest three consecutive heats in a race, Star Pointer,
2:02 1/2, 2:03 1/2, 2:03 3/4.
11. Fastest three heats in a race, Star Pointer, 2:02 1/2,
2:03 1/2, 2:03 3/4.
12. Fastest seven-heat race, The Maid, 2:07 1/4, 2:07 1/4,
2:05 1/4, 2:09, 2:05 3/4, 2:07, 2:08 3/4.
13. Fastest mile in a race to wagon, Angus Pointer,
2:04 1/2.
 14. Fastest team, Direct Hal and Prince Direct, 2:05 1/2.
15. Fastest three-heat in race to wagon, Angus Pointer,
2:06 1/4, 2:04 1/2, 2:06 1/4.
16. Fastest green performer, stallion, Direct Hal, 2:04 1/2.
17. Fastest team in a race, Charley B and Bobby Hal, 2:13.
18. Fastest pacing team, amateur trials, Prince Direct and
Morning Star, 2:06.
It will be observed that all of these records except a few were made
in races and not against time.
Whence came this wonderful family of horses? What is this pacing
gait? What mingling of blood lines have brought these horses of the
plow, the saddle and the wheel to the grandstand and the pinacle of
fame?
This is the story I shall tell as a serial during the first twelve issues
of Trotwood’s Monthly.
The light-harness horse has come to be a type of its own. It is
distinctly an American type, as distinguished from the English
running, or thoroughbred horse, the German and French coach, the
Russian Orloff and horses of other nationalities. There is a wide gap,
however, between a race horse, whether runner or harness horse,
and other breeds, however pure, their blood lines. It is the
difference of intelligence, speed, endurance, of lung development, of
steel bone. It is the difference between genius and mediocracy—for
speed is to the horse what genius is to man.
Whence began this speed—in the English runner, in the American
trotter and pacer? Traced back, the sheiks of the desert might tell;
they who worshipped the midnight stars, or chased on steeds of fire
the wild antelope of the plains, before Abraham came from “Ur of
the Chaldees.” Knowing the past now from the present, seeing it so
clearly through the glasses of twentieth century science, knowing
the laws of the “survival of the fittest,” that land and air and sand
and sun make both the physical man as well as the physical horse,
we can easily guess what centuries of wild gallops across the desert
will do for the horse, supplemented by that natural love of him in his
master—that love which brings care and kindness and the exercise
of common sense in mating and maternity.
As to the American horse, there are two distinct classes, based on
their respective gaits—the trotter and the pacer. In another chapter
these respective gaits are fully discussed, their difference shown,
their origin and the speed attained by each. This brief history will
deal only with the pacing gait, but so closely are these two great
gaits related, and so often do the blood lines of trotter and pacer run
in parallel columns that it is necessary for a clear explanation of the
subject to say a foreword about the trotter, that grand type of
beauty, speed and utility, so purely American and so superbly great
that the very mention of his name should excite a patriotic glow in
the bosom of every American who loves his country and her just
fame.
The history of the trotting horse began with Messenger, a gray
thoroughbred foaled in 1780, and imported from England to America
in May, 1788. He was royally bred for his time, being by Mambrino,
son of Engineer, and through both sire and dam he traced to the
famous Godolphin Arabian. An old description of him says he was
15 3/4 hands high, with “a large, long head, rather short, straight
neck, with wind-pipe and nostrils nearly twice as large as ordinary;
low withers, shoulders somewhat upright, but deep and strong;
powerful loins and quarters; hocks and knees unusually large, and
below them limbs of medium size, but flat and clean and, whether at
rest or in motion, always in perfect position.” With this beginning, in
1822, a Norfolk trotter called Bellfounder, who had trotted two miles
in six minutes, and had challenged all England to a trot, was
imported. It was his daughter in which the strains of Messenger met
that produced Hambletonian 10, the head of the trotting type in
America, the first great trotting sire of the world, and through him
perpetuated by his great sons, such as Geo. Wilkes, Electioneer,
Dictator, and their descendants. Through all these years the trotting
record has gradually been reduced, first by one great trotter and
then another, beginning with the first queen of the trotting turf, Lady
Suffolk, and ending with that superb little thing of fire and speed
and sweetness, Lou Dillon. Literally, in that century of progress
millions of dollars have been spent, not only by thousands of small
breeders, but by such financial magnates and great breeders as
Vanderbilt, Sanford, Bonner, Backman, Alexander, Forbes, Lawson
and others, chiefly in New York, New England, Kentucky and
California.
The effect of all this was to create that splendid race of trotters now
known all over the world, and to produce a horse capable of trotting
a mile in two minutes or better.
But even before the advent of Messenger there had developed in the
eastern coast of the Colonies, chiefly in Delaware and Rhode Island,
a family of extremely fast pacers known as the Narragansetts, an
account of which will be seen a few chapters further on. These
horses were small, but game, docile, excellent under the saddle, and
used almost exclusively for travel in those early days of pioneer
roads. Their speed was marvelous, if the testimony of Rev. Dr.
McSparrow, 1721, an English minister who was stationed in the
Colonies, may be accepted as proof. This reverend gentleman,
writing to a friend in England says that he has seen them pace in
races under saddle, going a mile in “a little less than two and a good
deal better than three minutes.”
However, for nearly two centuries the pacer never was thought of as
a factor in horse development, especially as a race horse until the
advent of the Hal family of Tennessee, in the early 70’s, with Little
Brown Jug and Mattie Hunter, although the great bloodlines and
speed of Pocahontas, James K. Polk and other noted pacers in the
early ’40’s ought to have foretold what great possibilities lay in the
despised pacing gait. As usual, the rejected stone found itself in the
key of the arch, and out of Tennessee, by what some might term
chance, but in fact the legitimate product of scientific breeding, of
soil, of climate and grass, out of an obscure family of saddle horses,
bred with no idea of racing and with never a thought of fame, but
taken, like Coriolanus, literally from the plow, this horse is found—
the first to go a mile in two minutes or better, and to do almost
without price and without effort what the millionaires of horsedom
had spent fortunes to do in vain.
This was first accomplished by Star Pointer, at Readville, Mass.,
September 2, 1897.
Such a family deserves to be perpetuated in history, however brief it
may be and unpretentiously written. And I beg the future as well as
the present historian not to criticise too closely its style, for in it, as I
go along, a hundred fancies will twine themselves with my facts.
There is so much about man and horse that is akin. There is so
much of human nature in both—there is such a chance for
moralizing on their life, their death, their fame, their fortune, their
brief days’ strut on the stage of time, their passing out—“and the
rest is silence.” And, speaking of fame in both man and horse, is it
not all a lottery?
With men she is a sly and uncertain goddess, coming seldom to
those who court her, and often to others who care nothing for her,
so, in the rearing of race-horses the same uncertainty exists, and
matron after matron bred in purple lines may go on throwing
quitters and lunkheads year after year, while some obscure dam,
whose breeding is barely tolerable, but stamped by nature with a
spirit of fire and a soul of steel, sends out from some hithertofore
obscure breeders’ farm a race horse that sets a new mark for speed
and a new fashion for blood lines.
In a decision, Judge Gaynor, of the Supreme Court of King’s County,
New York, in a case against the president of the Gravesend track,
where runners are raced, held that horse racing was not a lottery.
This may be true within the technical meaning of the term, lottery,
but if the honorable court had held that breeding race horses was
not a lottery, we have our doubt whether the decision would have
met with the unanimous consent of the breeders themselves. And,
as we remarked above, fame itself is not more uncertain.
There is so much similarity between man and horse that a student of
either will constantly find himself comparing the two. Almost every
quality possessed by man has its counterpart, though often in a less
degree, in man’s favorite animal, while now and then the master
fails to come up to the many excellencies of his beast. A good judge
of human nature is invariably a good judge of horses and horse
nature. In fact, so well understood is this rule that “horse sense” in
man has come to have a definite meaning of its own, and classes
the human thus favored with a common sense stronger than usual.
It is almost certain failure for erring man to struggle only to be
famous. She never yet came in all her splendor to the impetuous
wooer. Like Cleopatra, who secretly tired of the infatuated Anthony,
who could not fight at Actium for thoughts of her, and secretly died
for love of the young Caesar who heartily despised the character of
the ancient Langtry, so also with fame. “God tempers the wind to
the shorn lamb,” and perhaps knows if he allowed the fools who
burn up their lives and their midnight oil seeking to become famous,
to become so, their heads would burst with conceit or their own
vanity would wreck them. But on the other hand, He often showers
on those who honestly fight for right, regardless of consequences,
who care more for principle than for worldly honor, and more for
truth than for glory, and who do their whole duty regardless of
consequences, the greatest fame and honor. The strutting peacock
has all he can carry in his gaudy plumage and resplendent feathers.
It would have been as much a sacrilege to have added these
decorations to either Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee, as it would
have been cruel to deprive John Pope and Robert Tombs of them.
And the gap between the pairs is the true distance between fame
and feathers.
The wild, reckless and dissipated young rake, who left Rome more to
be rid of his creditors than to fight the Gauls, never dreamed of the
glory in store for him as he threw the fire of his soul in his work and
blazed his way to fame both with a pen and sword—each so
resplendently bright that the student of to-day is lost in wonder and
admiration as he endeavors to decide on which Caesar’s greatest
claim to renown rests. “Here lies one whose name is written on
water,” is the epitaph which the poor, gentle, timid Keats begged to
have carved on his tomb, begged it as he lay dying from shafts of
cruelty and malice. And yet, his fame is as enduring as his art, and
that is “a thing of beauty” and “a joy forever.” “What have I done to
be worthy of this great honor?” asked Washington, when he heard
he was elected the first president of the Republic. Shakespeare was
silent, morose, dissatisfied, as all true artists are, with his own work,
and judging from the epitaph, which it is said he himself wrote, it
appears he was fearful he might not have even a place to rest his
bones. And so, the world over. Simplicity is greatness. Truth is fame.
Honesty is glory. If you doubt it compare Agricola and Cataline;
Washington and Arnold; Paul and Iscariot; Shakespeare and
Sheridan.
In the same line of reasoning it is an hundred to one when a
breeder, pinning everything on a pedigree, an individuality, or some
supposed excellency, ever hits the mark. It is said that the same
man once owned Kittrell’s Tom Hal and Copperbottom. The latter he
thought was the better horse; the former was ignored. Time has
shown, perhaps to his loss, the owner’s error. An exchange recently
published a story of how a prospective buyer went to purchase one
or two colts. The first was Hambletonian 10, then, I think, a
yearling; the second was a horse called Abdallah. He regarded
Abdallah the handsomest, the speediest, the best. He spent a good
deal of time in his examination, and as they were priced the same,
showing that even the owners had not discovered any difference, he
finally purchased the Abdallah colt, and, the writer adds, “The first
went to fame, the second to a double-tree.”
But some people think horse-breeding is not a lottery. Why, even
man-breeding is.
And so the Hal family, thinking not of fame, find it thrust upon them.
(To be Continued.)
 THE LAST HYMN OF THE BILOXI
(The Biloxi, a noble tribe of Indians who lived on the Gulf Coast
many centuries ago, were defeated in battle and besieged in their
last remaining fortress by an unrelenting enemy. Choosing rather to
die in the sea than to be captured and enslaved, they marched out
of their gate on a moonlit night, singing a death chant, a stately
procession of men, women and children, and continued seaward
until the waves swallowed them up. Their enemies stood on the
shore and watched them, struck with surprise and admiration. The
remains of their last fortress is said to be still standing at Biloxi,
Miss., and to this day there is heard a weird music which comes in
from the Gulf, oftenest on still, moonlit nights, which the natives call
“The Last Hymn of the Biloxi.”)
Over the sea, the silent sea,
Faint is the music that comes to me.
Pitifully pealing.
Silently stealing.
Kissing the waves so tenderly.

Starlight above—June—chirrup of crickets—

Fireflies and phantoms of stars in the glow.
Corn in the tassel—faint odor of pollen—
Blow! ye soft night winds, our requiem, blow—
Dear land that has known us, no more will ye know.

Over the sea, the moonlit sea,

Sad is the music that comes to me.
Echoing—dying—
Sobbing—sighing—
Song of a race that would ever be free.

Death in the land—grim death in the battle—

Death—and worse death—for mother and maid.
Bravely we fought, but Fate did not favor—
Sons of Biloxi, ye were never afraid—
In caverns of corals our bones shall be laid.

Over the sea, the crooning sea

(Weird as the wail of a wraith, to me).
Soft as the light dew
Falling the night through.
Faint as a sea-shell’s lullaby.

Moonlight around—mist, mist on the water—

Mist—’tis the drapery of Death on the deep.
White-robed we come—babe, mother and maiden—
Priest—warrior—pity us, sweet sea, and keep—
Dear Sea that has nursed us, in thee let us sleep.
Into the sea, the soothing sea.
Singing, they entered, and died to be free.
Now, when the echoing wave
Sobs o’er their coral grave.
It sings the last hymn of the brave Biloxi.
JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE.
 Testing and Redeeming Soils
By H. Alison Webster.

With the population of the world ever increasing, and the acreage of
fertile lands ever decreasing, with the consequent increasing
demand for, and decreasing supply of all products of the soil, is not
the duty of redeeming worn-out lands, enriching naturally poor lands
and preserving the fertility of fertile lands a duty that every land
owner owes to posterity? If the results of robbing the soil of its plant
foods has already been felt by the farmer, and if such a practice be
continued, what will be the condition of the same soil by the time it
descends to his great-grandchildren? If the vast majority of the
inhabitants of the globe are poor, and scarcely able to provide food
and raiment at the present prices, what will be the fate of such a
people when prices rise higher and higher, as will be the inevitable
result of an inadequate supply? Is confidence the cause of such
shameful neglect, or does the farmer lack confidence in the
practicability of the results of scientific research? It is true that the
great variety of objects in nature are extremely bewildering, and if
every farmer were forced to comprehend God’s creations in order to
equip himself to cultivate his land intelligently, the soil would
continue to get poorer and poorer, as the useful years of a long life
would pass in study; but men of science, in the past and present
generations, by faithful and noble work, have reduced all to simple
facts to be made practicable by the farmer, and there is no longer
any excuse for ignorance and neglect. Study the results of the work
of these men of science. Put them into practice. Experiment and
work with the soil. Study it and find out what it needs, and having
found out, supply the right thing in the right way at the right time. It
is work, hard work; but the reward is generous. In the words of Mr.
Charles Barnard, “Try things and learn, and having learned, do what
is right by your soil, and it will return all your labor in full measure,
running over, and your children will inherit the land as a well-kept
trust and blessing.”
As stated, things have been greatly simplified. Chemists, by
thousands of experiments, have found in all sixty-five single separate
things they call elements. Seventeen of these elements are in the
soil. Out of these seventeen the farmer is obliged to provide only
four, as the remaining thirteen, with favorable weather and proper
tillage of the soil, will take care of themselves. The four to be
provided are nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and calcium. The first
three elements are the most important, as they are plant foods or
fertilizers. The last, calcium, or lime, is a stimulant, and serves in the
capacity of neutralizing the acids of the soil. Lime is abundant in
many soils and in such soils is not needed; but where it is needed it
is needed badly and should be supplied. Nitrogen, potassium and
phosphorus are the plant foods that are yearly consumed in various
quantities by various crops, which are taken away and sold or
otherwise disposed of. They are foods absolutely necessary to plant
life, and if taken away and never returned, the soil is as certain to
become poor and exhausted as the sun is to set in the west. This is
the sum and substance of the whole matter. What you take from the
soil, you have to replace or suffer loss. Your soil may need one, two,
three or all four of the elements. What it requires can be found out
by experiment, as will be shown further on. These elements as
everyone must know, can be easily obtained at costs varying with,
and depending upon, the form in which they are bought, or methods
by which they are secured. The all-important thing is to study the
soil and prepare it to accept and properly appropriate whatever
foods are applied. No fertilizer is insurance against laziness and
ignorance. It takes work and intelligence to accomplish any task.
Study your soil, and you will appreciate the fact that it has a
constitution like yourself, and will get worn out, and sick, and need
physic just as you do. After knowing its constitution, you can
prescribe and administer the physic it requires. No doctor can
prescribe medicine intelligently without knowing the constitution of
his patient.
Naturally, though unfortunately, men of science, so far as the farmer
is concerned, are quite as intricate in their explanations of the
objects of nature, as are the objects themselves. Mr. Charles Bernard
in his “Talks About Soils,” published by Funk & Wagnalls, New York,
is the first to reduce matters to a practical plane. His explanations
and experiments I therefore adopt to simplify and make clear many
things which are of unquestionable importance.
The soil having been formed, in the main, by the weathering away
of the rocks, its foundation is either sand or clay or both combined.
On account of different quantities of sand and clay being found in
different soils, and to distinguish one from another, soils have been
divided into six classes. These are as follows:
A Light Sand.—This is a soil containing ninety per cent of sand. If it
had more sand and less of clay and other matter it would hardly
produce any useful plants, and could not fairly be called a soil.
2. A Pure Clay.—This would be a soil in which no sand could be
found. A pure clay soil would be wet and cold, and would not be
good for our common plants. Such soils are rare: and what is
commonly called a pure clay soil is one containing a great excess of
clay, and only a little sand or other matter.
3. A Loam.—This is one of the best of all soils. Such a soil contains
both sand and clay as well as other matter.
4. A Sandy Loam.—This is a mixture of sand and clay, with more
sand than clay.
5. A Clay Loam.—This is a mixture in which there is more clay than
sand.
6. A Strong Clay.—This is a clay containing from five to twenty per
cent of sand and other matter.
Experiments with Sand and Clay.—Procure a quart of pure sand and
spread it out in the sun to dry, and when dry place a small quantity
on a spoon, and hold over a hot fire. The heat has no effect upon it.
Remove the spoonful of sand from the fire, and it will be found that
the sand keeps its heat for a long time. Place a small quantity of
sand in a small sieve and pour water over it. The water at first flows
away more or less discolored, and presently runs quickly through the
sand pure and clean. While wet the sand sticks together slightly.
Place it in the air, and it soon dries, and the grains are as loose as
before. Place a little of the washed sand in a bottle filled with water.
Cork the bottle and shake it up. The sand will move about as long as
the water is in motion, but the instant the bottle is at rest, it falls to
the bottom, and forms a layer under the clear water. Place some of
the sand in an oven or in the sun till perfectly dry. Place three
tablespoonfuls of water in a saucer, and then pour carefully into the
saucer a cupful of dry sand. It becomes wet around the little heap
while still dry at the top; soon the water will begin to creep up the
sand and in a short time it is all wet, and remains wet as long as
there is water in the saucer.
These experiments show us that sand is not affected by heat, and
that it keeps its heat for some time; that water passes through it
readily and, if clean, the water passes through pure and clean. When
wet it is very slightly sticky, when dry this stickiness disappears
completely. In water it sinks the moment the water is at rest. Water
rises through it easily by capillary attraction.
Another experiment, taking more time, is to place some clean sand
in a flower pot, wet it, and sprinkle fine grass-seeds over it. Place in
a warm room and the seeds will soon sprout and send small roots
down into the sand.
These experiments show some of the characteristics of all soils
composed largely of sand. We observed that sand when heated
retains its heat for some time. Any soil having a large proportion of
sand, when warmed by the sun will keep the heat after the sun has
set or is hid by the clouds. We proved that water would flow quickly
through it. A sandy soil is therefore a dry soil, and for this reason
favorable to nearly all our useful plants. We saw that water would
rise through sand by capillary attraction, which makes sand useful in
soil in dry weather to bring water up from a damp subsoil to feed
the roots of plants growing in the soil.
However, there are objections to sand. As we saw, it is loose and
easily moved about by water. A sandy soil is therefore easily washed
away by rains, and, if too sandy, may suffer great injury by washing
in heavy storms. Water flows through sand quickly, and if there is no
damp subsoil immediately beneath, the soil may get so dry that
plants will burn up. The water may also wash down all the light
organic matter out of reach of the plants.
We observed that sand is easily moved about. This is important in
that all soils where plants are growing must be frequently stirred, to
let air come into the soil, and to kill the weeds. A sandy soil is easy
to hoe or plow, because the sand is loose. This saves time and
money, or work in caring for plants, and is a business advantage.
If you carry out the experiment with seeds planted on sand you will
observe that the roots of the young plants easily find their way
through the sand in search of food and water. This shows that a soil
containing sand is favorable to the growth of plants, because in it
their roots spread in every direction.
Procure a small quantity of clay from some clay bank. Place in a
warm place to dry, and in a day or two you can crush it into a soft,
impalpable powder. Pinch a little between the fingers and it appears
to stick together slightly. Place some in a bottle of water, cork it tight
and shake the bottle. The powder floats in the water in clouds, till
the water appears completely filled with it. Let the bottle stand and
it will be many hours before the clay settles and the water becomes
clear. Wet some of the dry clay, and it forms a sticky, pasty mass,
that has a soft, greasy feeling between the fingers. Spread some of
the soft, pasty mass over a sieve, and pour water on it and the
water will hardly pass through the sieve at all. Spread some wet clay
over a rough board, and pour water over it, and the clay will cling to
the board a long time before it is swept away. Place a lump of wet
clay in the sun and it will be many hours before it is entirely dry.
Spread some of the wet clay over a dish and place it in the sun, and
when it slowly dries it will be found full of cracks. Place a lump of
wet clay in an oven and it will dry hard like stone.
Place some of the wet clay in a pot and scatter fine seeds over it.
The seeds may sprout and try to grow, but they will probably perish
as tender roots are unable to push their way through the sticky clay.
After all these experiments have been performed with the clay and
sand, another experiment can be made by drying both the clay and
sand and then mixing them together in equal parts. When well
mixed place in a pot and scatter fine seeds upon the mixture. Water
well, and place in a sunny window; and the plants will sprout and
grow longer and better than in either the pure sand or pure clay.
These experiments with the lump of clay show that if soil consists
wholly of clay, it must be a poor place for plants. In every hard rain
the water, instead of sinking into the soil to supply the plants, would
run away over the surface and be wasted. After slow soaking rains
the soil would remain wet and cold for a long time. When the sun
dries the soil it splits and cracks and tears the roots of plants
growing in it. This sticky, pasty soil sticks to spade and plows and we
find it hard, slow work to cultivate it. A pure clay from these would
appear to be a poor soil for plants. We must not, however, be led
astray by our experiments, as it is not easy to find a soil composed
wholly of clay. It is usually mixed with other things and then forms a
valuable part of the best soils. Sand alone would be a poor soil. Clay
alone would be a poorer soil. Mixed together and mixed with other
things, they make a part of all good soils.
Organic and Inorganic Matter.—Organic matter is something that has
life, or has had life at some time. The organic matter in the soil has
been supplied by animals and plants, in one way or another. All else
is inorganic. Both organic and inorganic matters are necessary to the
existence of plants. Peaty soils wholly organic will not grow plants,
neither will sandy soils wholly sand. Inorganic matter forms the
foundation of soils and generally forms from eighty to ninety per
cent of the whole soil.
Testing Soils for Clay, Sand and Organic Matter.—Take from the
ground you wish to test, a peck of soil and place on a board in a
round heap, and with a trowel stir it until completely mixed. Then
pile into a heap and divide into four equal parts. Next weigh out
eight ounces, and spread it out to dry. When dry weigh it and note
the loss by air-drying. Next put the soil in a pan and place it in an
oven for three hours. Then take the soil out of the pan and weigh it,
noting the loss by fire-drying. It is now dry soil and to estimate the
organic and inorganic matter, place an iron shovel over the fire, and
when red hot put the dry soil on it, let it burn, stirring it occasionally
as it burns. It will smoke and smoulder away to ashes and dust.
When it ceases to smoke, carefully weigh the ashes. This ash
represents the inorganic sand and clay parts of the soil. All the
organic matter disappeared in the smoke.
Now take this ash and pour it in a bottle of water. Shake the bottle
well and then set on a table, and just so soon as the water becomes
still the sand will immediately settle at the bottom, while the clay will
remain for some time making the water muddy. As soon as the sand
has settled, pour the muddy or clay water off, being careful not to
pour any of the sand with it. Then pour some clear water in the
bottle on the sand, shake it and pour sand water and all on a cloth
fine enough to catch the sand. Dry the sand and weigh it. If it
weighs two ounces, then out of the four ounces of dry soil you have
tested you have two ounces of sand, one ounce of clay and one
ounce of organic matter. Or your soil is twenty-five per cent organic
matter and twenty-five per cent clay, and fifty per cent sand. You
have a loam soil.
Testing Soils with Plant Foods and Lime.—In the field to be tested,
select as level a place as possible and mark out ten squares, each
measuring one rod on each side. Place these in two rows leaving
spaces three feet wide between the squares. These empty spaces
are to be kept clear of weeds and used as walks. Each square should
be marked by stakes at the corners, and properly numbered as in
the accompanying diagram.
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