PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE SOIL. 407 



how, if they are dissolved, they are to be kept from being 

 washed away. It is not for any finite mind, in cases which 

 admit of any doubt, to say what is possible or what is impos 

 sible ; and it would be premature to condemn that which comes 

 recommended upon such high authority, and is yet to be made 

 the subject of experiment. After the extraordinary and most 

 beneficial results which have been effected by the thorough 

 draining of all superfluous wet from the soil, the agriculturists 

 may, however, pursue the system with a good degree of con 

 fidence, especially if a mode has been discovered of combining 

 the alkalies and the phosphates, that they shall not be so dis 

 solved by rain and wet as to be washed away, and yet that they 

 shall be so dissolved that they may be taken up by the plant as 

 its wants may require. Within the last month of writing this, 

 I have seen, on a thin, dry, and light soil, in which sand 

 abounded, the beneficial effects of thorough drainage, where, on 

 a field of turnips, the crop of the drained portion, with no other 

 difference than the drainage, was evidently better, by one half, 

 than that on the undrained part. If it be the fact that soils of a 

 friable or porous nature are, in this way, liable to lose these 

 beneficial elements by rains and wet, it would seem extraordi 

 nary that the fact had not been sooner discovered, and their 

 deficiency and destitution made evident. I would not express 

 these doubts in any captious spirit, knowing how much agricul 

 ture must, in the end, owe to science, and being ready to hail 

 with the highest satisfaction any triumph it may achieve. 



3. CONSISTENCY AND FRIABILITY OF SOILS. The next point 

 to be considered, in the character of a soil, is its consistency or 

 friability. A soil, if too closely packed, which soils of almost 

 pure clay are liable to be, not only forbids the passage of water, 

 which it holds stagnant upon its surface, but is impervious to 

 the roots of plants, especially of those plants which send their 

 roots downwards in search of nourishment. It is likewise ex 

 tremely difficult to be worked in wet weather, being not easy to 

 move upon, adhering to the feet of the workmen and the horses, 

 and to the implements, and in dry weather being sunburnt and 

 hard, and, when turned up, remaining in large and unmanageable 

 clods. In the northern parts of the United States, where the 

 frosts are severe, plants are always liable to be thrown out, and 



