State Agricultural Society. 333 



will be under the necessity of replanting. We have seen corn and pea=<, 

 and even beans, after sprouting vigorously, thus prevented from coming 

 out of the ground by a crust formed on the surface. 



The proper proportion of sand and vegetable decomposition mixed 

 with the clay tempers the soil and renders it easily worked at all times. 

 It renders it porous and susceptible of absorbing and retaining moisture 

 in the proper degree to dissolve the nutritious elements of the soil, and 

 thus feed and nourish the plants. We have seen just such stiff adobe 

 soils as we have described above completely renovated and converted 

 into the very best of garden land by a single overflow of a river, and a 

 deposit upon it of two or three inches of fine sand. By plowing deep 

 and cultivating and mixing the deposit of sand with the old clayey stiff 

 soil, we obtain a lively mellow and porous soil capable of being worked 

 at almost any time in the year without injury. A soil that will allow 

 the air to penetrate to a great depth, and which will extract from that 

 air sufficient moisture to support the growth of plants in the driest of 

 seasons. We have known large tracts of land bordering the Sacra- 

 mento Eiver to be thus changed, and more than quadrupled in value, by 

 the deposits of a single overflow, We have known such renovated land 

 to rent annually, for garden purposes, for more money than it could in 

 its original condition have been sold for. Thus nature manipulates and 

 makes land and changes whole sections in a single year from stiff, heavy, 

 and intractable soils to light, lively, and sandy ioams, thus doubling and 

 quadrupling their value for many purposes. 



A LESSON FROM NATURE. 



From such operations of nature, the farmers, on the stiff, clay soils 

 of the prairies and oak openings of our State, including all our red soils, 

 and in fact nearly all of what are generally recognized as the best grain 

 districts, may learn an important lesson. From these operations they 

 may learn just what they may do with a small piece of land to give each 

 of them as valuable a garden spot as nature ever formed. These prairie 

 soils are stiff and heavy, and want to be tempered with sand and vege- 

 table matter. The vegetable matter is always at hand in every barn- 

 yard. There are but few localities in this State where plenty of good 

 sediment sand cannot also be obtained within a reasonable distance. 



Oue hundred and sixty feet square — a space sufficiently large — for a 

 good vegetable garden for a large sized family, could be covered three 

 inches deep by almost any farmer, within a year, and he would scarcely 

 feel the expense. Having selected the place for the garden, he should in 

 the first place plow and subsoil it, at, least from sixteen to twenty inches 

 deep — two feet or more would be still better. Then draw on the manure — 

 well rotted barn manure would be best — and sand in about equal pro- 

 portions. Let the whole be thoroughly mixed with the soil, as low down 

 as it has been subsoiled, but leaving a larger proportion of sand and 

 manure mixed with the surface foot of earth. A deep ditch — say three 

 or four feet deep— around the entire plat, with two or three blind ditches, 

 say two feet deep, and equal distances apart running from one side to the 

 other and emptying into the border ditch, would add very much to the 

 life and elasticity of the soil and to its productiveness. It may be- 

 doubted by some whether land on the dry plains of California would be 

 benefited by drainage. In answer to this doubt we would remark that 

 the object of such drainage is to introduce air into the soil and thus 

 render it more moist in dry weather, as well as lighter and drier in wet 



