Final comment on soil landscape Dynamics

 The final comment on soil landscape dynamics is a poem about soils written by the great Pedologist     Dr. Francis D. Hole (1913-2002). The poem appears in the epilogue of the book he co-authored with another great Pedologist J.B. Campbell, “Soil Landscape Analysis” (1985). Hole made seminal contributions to the ideas of soil cover patterns and catenas. Hole earned his PhD Degree in geology and soil science at the university of Wisconsin-Madison in 1944. Among his many publications were “Soils of Wisconsin” and “Soil Genesis and Classification”. Hole created the Journal “Soil Survey Horizons”, and compiled the map “Soils of Wisconsin”. He emphasized the pedon concept and in his classic article in 1953 suggested the terminology for describing soils as three dimensional units. The poem goes like this:

Five things influence soil landscapes;

Biota, climate, terrain shapes,

Initial stuff and human kind.

A blend of these may loose or bind

The land skin of hills and dales:

Here turns soil dark, and elsewhere pales;

Leaches it poor or makes it rich,

Defining each natural niche,

Erodes or catches soil debris,

Changing the landscape endlessly.

After retirement, Hole spent his time giving lectures and courses on the importance of soils. RESPECT#