Book V. SOIL OF FARMING LANDS. 709 



extremely valuable for weaning and keeping lambs. How much more beneficial, than 

 any crops of grain that such soils usually yield ! {Young's iCalend. 123.) 



4380. The fertility of sandy soils, is in proportion to the quantity of rain that falls, com- 

 bined with the frequency of its recurrence. As a proof of this, in the rainy climate of 

 Turin, the most prolific soil has from seventy-seven to eighty per cent, of siliceous earth, 

 and from nine to fourteen of calcareous ; whereas in the neighborhood of Paris, where 

 there is much less rain, the silex is only in the proportion of from twenty-six to fifty per 

 cent, in the most fertile parts. 



4381. 6?rayf?% 5oi75 differ materially from sandy, both in their texture and modes of 

 management. They are frequently composed of small soft stones, sometimes of flinty 

 ones ; but they often contain granite, limestone, and other rocky substances, partially, 

 but not very minutely decomposed. Gravel, being more porous than even sand, is 

 generally a poor, and what is called, a hungry soil, more especially when the parts of 

 which it consists, are hard in substance, and rounded in form. Gravelly soils are easily- 

 exhausted, for the animal and vegetable matters they contain, not being thoroughly in- 

 corporated with the earthy constituent parts of the soil, (which are seldom sufficiently- 

 abundant for that purpose,) are more liable to be decomposed by the action of the atmos- 

 phere, and carried off by water. 



4382. ^ gravelly soil, free from stagnant water, gives such an additional warmth to 

 the climate, that vegetation is nearly a fortnight earlier, than where other soils predomi- 

 nate. About Dartford and Blackheath, in Kent, such soils produce early green pease, 

 winter tares, rye, autumnal pease, and occasionally wheat, in great perfection. 



4383. Gravelly soils, in a wet climate, answer well for potatoes ; in Cornwall, in a 

 sheltered situation, with a command of sea-sand, and of sea- weed, they raise two crops of 

 potatoes in the same year. 



4384. Poor gravelly soils, full of springs, and those sulphureous, are very unfriendly to 

 vegetation ; and are better calculated for wood than for arable culture. 



4385. The stoney, shaley, or stone-brash soils of Gloucestershire, and the midland 

 counties of England, are much mixed with small stones, but have more frequently sand, 

 or clay, or calcareous loam, in their composition, than gravelly soils, and are therefore 

 generally preferable. 



4386. A clayey soil is often of so adhesive a nature, that it will hold water like a dish. 

 In a dry summer, the plough turns it up in great clods, scarcely to be broken or separated 

 by the heaviest roller. It requires, therefore, much labor to put it in a state fit for pro- 

 ducing either corn or grass, and it can only be cultivated, when in a particular state, and 

 in favorable weather. Though it will yield therefore, under a proper system of manage- 

 ment, great crops, yet being cultivated at a heavy expense, requiring stronger instruments, 

 and stouter horses, it is seldom that much profit is obtained, unless when occupied by a 

 judicious and attentive farmer. The best management of clay soils, is that of the Lo- 

 thians. There they are found well calculated for growing crops of beans, wheat, oats, 

 clover, and winter tares j but are not adapted for barley, unless immediately after a fal- 

 low ; nor for potatoes, unless under very peculiar management. In regard to turnips, 

 they do not usually thrive so well in clays, as in soils which are more free and open. 

 But it is now ascertained, that the Swedish, and above all, the yellow turnip, may be 

 raised in them with advantage ; that the quality is superior ; that if they are taken up 

 early, the soil is not injured ; and that there is no difficulty in preserving them. Clays 

 become good meadow-lands, and answer well for hay, or soiling, when in grass ; but 

 from their aptitude to be poached, they are, irt general, unfit to be fed by heavy cattle in 

 wet weather. In dry seasons the after-grass may be used to feed neat cattle till October, 

 and sheep till March. A stiff clay, when not cold or wet, with a strong marl under it, is 

 preferred in Cheshire and Derbyshire, for the dairy. 



4387. On reclaimed peat-bogs, oats, rye, beans, potatoes, turnips, carrots, cole-seed, 

 white and red clover, may be cultivated. Wheat and barley have succeeded on 

 such lands, after they have been supplied with abundance of calcareous earth; and 

 the fiorin grass (Jgrostis stolonifera), seems likewise to be well adapted to that description 

 of soil in a warm climate. In Leicestershire, and other counties, they have great tracts 

 of meadow land, which, in many instances, are the sites of lakes filled up, the soil of 

 which is composed of peat and sediment; the former originally formed by aquatic Vegeta- 

 tion, and the latter brought down by rains and streams from the upland. This forms a 

 soil admirably calculated for grass. 



4388. The fens in Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and several other districts iii Eng- 

 land, consist of peat and sediment. 



4389. Chalky soils principally consist of calcareous matter, mixed with various tither 

 substances, in greater or lesser proportions. Where clayey or earthy substances are to 

 be found in such soils in considerable quantities, the composition is heavy and productive j 

 >vhere sand or gravel abounds, it is light, and rather unfertile; The crops chiefly tolti- 



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