IMPROVING CLAY AND SAND SOILS. 31 



feet. Do this in advance of a rain or wash in the lime with a good 

 hosing. After allowing it to stand a few days give the plat a good 

 covering of farm yard manure, say a layer two or three inches in thick- 

 ness and dig again. If you are a good digger the new surface will 

 not show either lime or manure. Then cover the new surface with 

 an inch depth of sand and rake evenly, which will mix the sand with 

 the soil and the plot is ready for planting. After the plants are well 

 up from the seed or bulb, or immediately after planting, if the planting 

 be of rooted plants, cover the surface with more manure to be 

 worked into the soil with the winter weeds, if the start is made early 

 in the rainy season; or to remain on the surface as a mulch if the 

 rainy season is near its close. This will give you a start toward mel- 

 lowing a refractory soil. It should be repeated for several years until 

 you get a full spade's depth of loam which will no longer bake hard 

 or crack open. Liming and sanding will soon cease, but manuring 

 will continue as long as you desire to have good flowers. 



IMPROVEMENT OF LIGHT SOILS 



As already intimated this is a much easier problem because it re- 

 quires neither lime nor sand, but just straight, well-rotted manure, 

 year after year. The formation of humus by the further decay of the 

 manure enables to soil to hold faster to moisture and the increase of 

 fibrous material knits the particles together in better texture. Sand 

 and cow-manure, cow-manure and sand; keep at it, forwards and back- 

 wards, if you wish to get a loam that is worth its weight in flowers. 

 Wood ashes can be used to particular advantage on sandy soil, but 

 the coal ashes should go elsewhere; so should sawdust and all other 

 coarse stuff. U^e well rotted, fine grained animal manures: the pig, 

 sheep and goat, with plenty of water, make .a better contribution to a 

 light than to a heavy soil, but one must be careful that the amount 

 used is not too large. Chemical fertilizers are also more profitably 

 employed and water, which is the greatest of all plant foods, can be 

 safely used in large amount. It is hard to set bounds upon what can 

 be done with a light loam and cow manure under the favoring climates 

 of California. 



IMPROVEMENT OF ALKALI SOILS 



Here .and there in California valleys, the home-maker confronts the 

 problem of making ornamental plants grow on soils which contain too 

 much of the soluble salts of soda which go under the general name 

 of alkali. It is not easy to subdue them. The only sure way to free 

 the soil of them consists in underdraining with tiles and using an 

 abundance of fresh water on the surface, which will dissolve and 

 carry away the salts with the water through the drains. If the alkali 

 is very strong this is indispensable. If it is less strong and largely 



