f 92% J 
<9. Do you fuppofe that a foil, in which there is no 
calcareous matter, will produce grain or peafe in 
perfection? 
Good garden mould, in which there is no percepti- 
éle calcareous matter, will produce both in perfection. 
10. Whence is it, that calcareous foils are fo favour- 
able to the growth of clover? 
See query 3d. Froma drynefs peculiar to cal- 
careous foils. I have often feen the {mall hop-clover 
thrive on the tops of walls, where the foil was merely 
the feraping of roads, or pulverized freeftone, and 
from its form incapable of retaining moifture. 
11. Muft not foils, in order to be perfect, have the 
power of retaining a fufficient quantity of moifture? 
Moft affuredly. Different vegetables, however, 
require different proportions of moifture, and confe- 
quently foils capable of retaining different proportions. 
12. What are the be/t means of giving them that 
property? . 
By a due admixture of alkaline fubftances, if the 
foil be in fufficient quantity; if not, it fhould be 
increafed. 
13. Are not foils of too porous a quality, fuch as 
thofe which confift almoft folely of fand or gravel, in a 
great meafure barren; not only becaufe they hold no 
water, but alfo becaufe any manure put on them is foon 
carried down and loft, before it has had time to operate? 
The pores of gravel are too minute to imbibe 
moifture frecly, if at all. Yet, if the ftratum be of 
. confiderable 
