SOILS. Ss 



been here a fortnight afore I szvopped it for a pond !'' He 

 had, as a further explanation informed me, and after an 

 agreement with a neighbouring farmer, removed with pick 

 and barrow his sandy stratum to the depth of 3 feet, 

 wheeled it to the banks of an old pond, or rather to the 

 margin of a cavity where a pond once was, but which had 

 been gradually filled up with leaves and silt ; and this rich 

 productive mould he had brought home, a distance of 200 

 yards, replacing it with the gravel, and levelling as per con- 

 tract. Some other neighbour had given him a cartload of 

 clay, and the children had " scratted together a nicst bit o' 

 muck, and he meant stirring up them cottagers at next 

 show with Roses and kidneys too." 



It occurred to me, as I rode home reflecting, that there 

 was a striking similarity in this case, as in many others, 

 between the gardener and his ground ; for Will had been 

 at one time a drinking, poaching, quarrelsome " shack," and 

 was now a good husband, a good father, and, I believe, a 

 good Christian ; — the gravel had been converted into loam. 

 And is there not much resemblance between ourselves and 

 our soils— the soil without, and that soil within which the 

 Psalmist calls " the ground of the heart " t No two char- 

 acters, and no two gardens, exactly alike, but all with the 



