146 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



onions : and I cannot raise potatoes, either. But if you have 

 black soil going down a foot and a half or two feet, and then 

 coming into a close sand, it will retain the moisture, and you 

 will get good crops. 



Mr. Paul. Is your black soil muck? 



Mr. Emery. I don't know but it might be called muck, 

 in the common acceptation of the term ; but I don't think 

 many people understand what muck is : I don't know what 

 it is myself. A black soil may be ninety-five per cent, sand, 

 and it may be sixty-five ; and if it is peat, it might come 

 down to twenty-five per cent, vegetable matter. Now, a 

 black soil, I suppose all of you know, is colored by the de- 

 cayed vegetable matter. On upland, you do not find the 

 black soil going down but a very few inches ; on low land, 

 you will find that it goes down deeper. On flat land, where 

 there is a large quantity of wash, you will find it, where the 

 humus or decayed vegetable matter is carried down by the 

 rains. The soil Avill take that up as a sponge will take up 

 water, and Avill hold it at the top. That is, it will hold all 

 the plant-food at the top, if there is vegetable matter there 

 to hold it ; and after it gets full, the next year it goes below. 

 It is like a cellar near a barn or near a vault, that gets im- 

 pregnated from that barn or that vault and becomes un- 

 healthy. It does not become so the first year. The filth is 

 caught by the first soil to which it comes, and the next year 

 it penetrates further, and it penetrates until it works its way 

 throuoh the wall into the cellar. But the soil holds the 

 plant-food in the first instance, unless it is full and cannot 

 hold any more. To show you the philosophy of that, the 

 water used in this city was formerly obtained from a great 

 many wells, and no better water was to be found anywhere 

 than those wells furnished. When they came to analyze the 

 water, after a good many years, it was found to be ex- 

 ceedingly impure : the vaults and cesspools in the city had 

 carried a great amount of filth into those wells ; but they 

 lasted a great many years. If you sow your fertilizer upon 

 these light soils, they will hold it on the top a sufficient time 

 for you to get your corn crop. I don't think you will get 

 on with it the next year. If you sow it on retentive land, 

 on close land, what it does not take up this year, the crop 



