270 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Some plants arc better suited with one kind of soil, and 

 others with an entirely different one. Beans, corn, rye, barley 

 and buckwheat prefer a warm, and the first a rather dry soil ; 

 wheat, oats, the grasses, and most of the roots, require a heavier 

 and more moist soil to grow them to perfection ; while grass and 

 potatoes seem to be the most suitable crops to cultivate on a 

 moist or peaty soil. We are well aware that some of these 

 Varieties of plants produce good crops, in favorable seasons, on 

 all these different kinds of soil — as grass and potatoes in a web 

 season will produce good crops on dry soils, when in a dry year 

 they will prove nearly a failure. 



Many of the best farmers in this State endeavor to adapt 

 their crops to their soils, and to put them in a proper condition 

 to sustain the particular crop, and succeed well when not pre- 

 vented by the fluctuations of the seasons, more particularly as 

 regards moisture. Others, who do not pay any attention to it, 

 make a total or partial failure occasionally, and do not succeed, 

 as a general thing, in producing full crops so often. As an 

 instance, a farmer, who has a swamp composed almost entirely 

 of vegetable matter, on which he has grown potatoes in abun- 

 dance, seeds it to grass in August. In the month of June 

 following he finds his grass with slender stems, totally unable to 

 support itself erect, so that the crop falls down, dwindles away, 

 and results in nearly a failure. If he is a novice in farming, 

 and has never seen such effects before, he inquires the reason 

 for this, and finds it is simply because he has not furnished to 

 the grass one particular element necessary for its perfection. 

 So, on a soil otherwise admirably adapted to grass, the crop 

 results in a failure for want of a little silica, which could have 

 been furnished in a light dressing of sand, the want of which 

 rendered the soil in this instance unfit for or not adapted to the 

 crop. 



So far we have divided soils only as relates to their moisture. 

 The divisions commonly found in Massachusetts are sand, or 

 sandy loams, clay, clay loams, vegetable, or peaty soils, or the 

 different combinations of them. Each of these, by its composi- 

 tion, is better adapted to the successful production of some vari- 

 eties of plants than to others. As we have before said, beans, 

 corn, and some other plants prefer a sandy loam, although they 

 will grow well on a clay loam, when not too wet ; oats, wheat, 



