Look Up Every Unfamiliar Word You See
In the book The Lean Farm: How to Minimize Waste, Increase Efficiency, and Maximize Value and Profits with Less Work (2015), the author, Ben Hartman, uses the word “friable” on page 162:
After a few seasons our soil was so friable—we could easily stick our hand in to a depth of 8 to 10 inches—that we often were able to pull one crop and plant another without any soil prep at all.
From Wiktionary—friable:
Adjective
- Easily broken into small fragments, crumbled, or reduced to powder.
- (of soil) Loose and large-grained in consistency.
- of poisons) Likely to crumble and become airborne, thus becoming a health risk.
- (mathematics, of a number) smooth: that factors completely into small prime numbers.
Etymonline.com on friable.
Wikipedia on friability.