OF THE TREATMENT OF DIFFERENT SOILS. 155 



in a manner, unmanageable at certain seasons ; generally 

 speaking, they are hard in dry weather, and swampy in wet. 

 Xo garden roots can do well in clay, without it is ameliorated 

 in a great measure. The best application to clay lands is a 

 mixture of peat-earth and dung. Let the heap be composed 

 of load for load of the peat-earth that is full of half-decom- 

 posed vegetable matter, consisting of the strong fibrous roots, 

 and sand and dung ; and this heap, when chopped down and 

 mixed, will be found an excellent dressing. Bat it will have 

 to be perseveringly applied in considerable quantity to make 

 a clay soil fit for a good kitchen garden or fiower garden. 

 We are presuming, too, that there has already been performed 

 on the ground all the draining that is necessary, for the clay 

 land would be altogether unmanageable if it also lay wet. 

 These stifi" lands cannot be knocked about and stirred too 

 often, and if any portion is vacant in winter time, it should 

 be left in good high ridges, that the surface may be increased 

 for the frost to act upon. It is also necessary in the manage- 

 ment of clay soil to watch for its particular condition for 

 working. If too wet, you can do nothing with it, and if too 

 dry, the lumps can hardly be broken. It is only a short 

 time between wet and dry weather that the soil is at all 

 workable with advantage, in its transition from wet to dry. 

 Such ground cannot be too often forked. Eoad sand is next 

 in usefulness to peat, if mixed with dung; but merely 

 adding sand to clay without dung will scarcely render it less 

 adhesive. Generally speaking, the oftener it is dug and 

 forked, or, if in large quantity, ploughed, the better ; for the 

 separation of its particles is absolutely required, and the 

 dung, and sand, and peat, and any lighter medium mixed 

 with it, keep the mass open, instead of allowing it to run 

 together again. On an estate where there were a lew acres of 

 common heath soil, as well as some very stiff clay land, carts 

 were kept removing loads of the peaty heath mould to the 

 clay spot, and returning with clay, and the labourers were 

 kept mixing and bruising the clay and peat together for 

 the top eighteen inches, by which means the two other"\nse 

 useless, or nearly useless, fields were brought into first-rate 

 cultivation. And although such an operation would be 

 costly, the first cost was the best, because instead of half- 

 crops and no crops at all, some of the finest crops on the 

 estate were the immediate result. There are some applica- 



