Dr Samuel Johnson is reputed to have said ‘what is written without effort is in general read without pleasure’. This edition of Principles and Practice of Soil Science has certainly taken much effort to complete, so I hope it will be enjoyed and provide valuable information to as wide an audience of interested readers as possible. The people I would expect to be interested in learning more about soils are not only soil scientists and others concerned with production systems, but also the various scientists and natural historians who are concerned about Earth’s ecology in its broadest sense
