The growth of crops depends on many factors, not least the nature of the soil. It is, therefore, important to be able to describe soils in unequivocal terms, much as living organisms are precisely defined according to the binomial taxonomic system originated by Linnaeus. The very complex and varied nature of soils makes this a difficult problem but since the 1950s it has been vigorously tackled by the US Soil Taxonomy programme. The hierarchical system developed is reviewed here.
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