iro FARMER'S ASSISTANT. 



Mr. Young makes mention of British Farmers making 

 their fortunes by bringing poor sandy lands, of the above de- 

 scription, under profitable cultivation, by the aid of clays, or 

 clayey marles, for manuring them. A marie having much 

 sand combined with it would be unfit for this purpose. 



It is only the tolerably level parts of such lands, which 

 should be selected for thus improving. Those which are 

 broken are generally too sterile, and to little retentive of 

 manure, to be improved to any advantage, otherwise than by 

 planting them with locust, for which they are very well 

 adapted. 



Sometimes, too, some parts of such soils will be found 

 closely underlaid with a sand too coarse to be made suffi- 

 ciently retentive, by any reasonable expense ; these should 

 therefore be cultivated with the locust, or perhaps with 

 fruit-trees, if they will thrive on such soils. 



Our sea-coast abounds, in many places, with much sandy 

 lands, which need improving in the manner just mentioned. 

 Under MANURES, the Reader will also find some hints, 

 relative to a method which might probably be advantage- 

 ously adopted, for improving all lands which lie adjoining, 

 or near, every seashore, by manuring them with sea- 

 water. 



Where lands are too retentive of moisture, and at the 

 same time not too level nor too steep, they may be greatly 

 benefited by hollow-drains. 

 See HOLLOW-DRAINS. 



Where they are flat meadows, marshes, or morasses, they 

 are to be laid dry by open drains. 



See BOGMEADOWS and DITCHES. 



Where they lie too low for any draining of this kind, 

 they are either to be raised by the means of war/ring* or 

 the water is to be raised out of the ditches, for the purpose 

 of being thrown back into the river, ocean, or elsewhere, 

 whence they came, by the means of wind-machinery. 



In this manner, a large proportion of Holland has been 

 redeemed from the ocean ; and considerable tracts in Cam- 

 bridgeshire and Lincolnshire, in England, have in like man- 

 ner been made very productive for grass. 



In this case, the ditches, which are to be large and pro- 

 portioned to the extent of the tract drained off, are to be 

 run to that point where it is most convenient to raise the 

 waters out of them by wind-machinery, to be carried off. 

 But, in order to do this, a dyke, or bank, is first to be rais- 

 ed round that part of the land adjoining the side whence it 

 is overflowed ; or, if it be an island, it is to be banked all 

 round. The bank is to be of a height and thickness suita- 

 ble to the weight and turbulence of the waters it may at 

 times have to encounter from without. 



