154 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



macliine many a time ourselves, and there is one advantage 

 which, we have not in mo's^ong, — the grass may be wet or dry 

 for the machine, therefore we have the whole day to work in, 

 instead of the first hour or two of daylight. The managers 

 of the Sheffield Botanical Gardens boasted in their report of 

 the saving they should make, and had begun to make, by 

 adopting the use of a mowing machine, so that it has had the 

 test of some years, and unless it were efficacious, a pubhc 

 body managing a garden would certainly not adopt it and 

 boast of its economy. 



OF THE treativieot: oe differext soils. 



"We are not prepared to recommend the analysing chemist 

 to test a few sods of ground before we begin to cultivate it, 

 because we hold that for the most part a practical man can 

 estimate the soil as well, by turning it over, and handling it 

 and smelling it, as is at all necessary for the ordinary pur- 

 poses of farming and gardening. It is as easy to discover 

 whether earth is light and sandy, or heavy and clayey — 

 whether it is fat and rich, or peaty or poor, — as it is to decide 

 on a growing crop ; and generally speaking, the productions 

 will show us what the land is without turning it over. The 

 most hungry of all soil is that which is light and sandy, and 

 at the top of a subsoil of gravel. It would seem that all the 

 dung we can put on such land is gone in a season. With land 

 like this, one load of good loam or marl will do more good 

 than two loads of dung ; but in preparing dung for such land, 

 the mixture will be beneficial. Let there be, if it be possible 

 to get it, a load of loam under the dimg-heap, and when there 

 is a load of dung upon it, another load of loam, and so on 

 alternately. This mixture will be far more eniiching than 

 dung alone. A dressing of lime in the autumn will also help 

 it, but as it is the loam or marl that is really wanted to render 

 the earth fertile and profitable, it must be kept in mind that 

 the sooner we can put a quantity in the land, the better ; for 

 until it has this, the dung dissolves and washes through the 

 soil, so that one-half is totally lost. In such lands as this, 

 top-dressing is better than digging in, for it has then to wash 

 all through, and the roots get more of it in passing than they 

 would in having to go down after it. 



Clay Soils. — Clay soils are most troublesome; they are, 



