THE FARMERS MANUAL, 



found from the best experience, not to be true. Gyp- 

 sum answers well upon all grounds where clover 

 will flourish, and this may be considered as a criterion, 

 notwithstanding it answers best upon a sandy, gra- 

 velly, or a loamy soil, and so does clover. If your 

 soil is a stiff clay, you may reduce it to a loam, by 

 dressing the surface frequently when under a sward, 

 or covered with herbage, with plaster, sand, and rich 

 manures, until you obtain a rich sward, then turn in 

 your sward for tillage, and stock down as soon as 

 possible, and dress again as before; in a few years, 

 the stiffest clay may be reduced to a rich clay loam. 

 If your land is a coarse, sharp sand, and even a 

 blowing sand, you may reduce it to a loam by sowing 

 plaster, with red-top, or other fibrous rooted grasses, 

 until you can obtain a sward, then dress with plaster ; 

 with strong clay loam ; marl ; or even with a stiff 

 clay, laid on in the fall, and well spread, and the 

 clods well broken with the harrow and roller ; these 

 dressings will commix with the sward, by the assist- 

 ance of the frosts and rains of winter and spring. 

 When your sward has become strong and rich by 

 the aid of rich manures, break up by deep plough- 

 ing ; take one crop of potatoes, or grain, then stock 

 down again, and proceed as before ; you will in a few 

 years obtain a rich sandy loam. It must be remem- 

 bered, that the texture of these opposite soils can be 

 changed, only, by dressing upon the surface, when 

 under a sward. The success of this mode of tillage 

 depends very much upon the attention of the farmer, 

 in avoiding a tillage with the exhausting crops, when 

 his lands are ploughed ; and in stocking down again 

 as soon as possible, that he may continue the means 

 of changing the soil, by raising the strength and fer- 

 tility of his land. 



The clay soil, when under tillage, cannot be plough- 

 ed too frequently, to obtain the best crop; and on the 

 other hand, your light sandy soil will do best under 

 one ploughing, and that should always be as deep 



