374 



SAN 



SAN 



does lasts many years." — Complete 

 Farmer, 



Sand entirely changes the nature 

 of a clayey soil ; so that it will 

 scarcely ever become so compact, 

 as it was before sanding. Nor is 

 any other manure so good as sand, 

 to loosen and soften it. No other 

 will have so lasting an effect. From 

 being the least productive, a soil of 

 clay, by sanding, comes to be the 

 most fruitful of any, when it is suf- 

 ficiently sanded ; for it has more of 

 the food of plants in it than any 

 other soil, wanting only to have its 

 cohesion sufficiently broken, to 

 give a free passage to the roots of 

 vegetables. For this purpose, a 

 very small dressing of sand will not 

 seem to produce any effect. A 

 layer of two and a half or three in- 

 ches will not be too much for land 

 in tillage, if it be a stiff clay. 



The benefit of sanding does not 

 appear so much the first year or 

 two as afterwards : For the oftener 

 the land is tilled, the more tho- 

 roughly is the sand mixed with the 

 clay ; by which the vegetable pas- 

 ture is more and more increased. 



But sand laid upon clay land in 

 grass, will have a great effect, with- 

 out mixing it with the soil. I have 

 known half an acre of clay land 

 laid to grass, which became so 

 bound and stiff, as to produce only 

 two or three cocks at a mowing, 

 with a mixture of low moss and 

 other trash. The owner, in Octo- 

 ber, 1783, with one yoke of oxen, 

 carted on eighty loads of yellow 

 sand from the road, which was 

 about equal to forty carts full ; le- 

 velled it with a harrow, and threw 

 in some hay seed. The following 



year it produced ten hundred 

 weight of good hay : Last year it 

 produced twenty hundred ; and it 

 is expect. -d, that about (hirty hun- 

 dred will be the weight of the crop 

 in <he present year, 1786. The 

 sand not oi)]y added warmth to the 

 soil, but prevented the clay from 

 becoming so dry and hard as to 

 prevent the roots of" the grass from 

 extending themselves in it. 



SANDY SOIL, a soil in which 

 sand is the predominant ingredi- 

 ent. 



It is seldom found unmixed with 

 oth;;r ingredients. Wherever it is 

 so, it is extremely barren, and of 

 little or no value. It will scarcely 

 produce weeds. 



Some barren sands consist of 

 very fine particles, and have no 

 sward over them. The wind drives 

 them before it, and makes what 

 are called sand jloods, which bury 

 the neighbouring lands and fences. 

 The fences near them should be 

 tall hedges to abate the force of 

 winds : And trees which require 

 but little nourishment from the 

 earth, should be planted in these 

 sands, that a sward may be obtain- 

 ed upon them. See Locust Tree. 



When a sandy soil is used in til- 

 lage, it should be for those crops 

 which require the most heat, and 

 are least apt to suffer by drought ; 

 as maize, tobacco, rye, pease, &c. 



The best manures for a sandy 

 soil, are marie, cow dung, and 

 swines' dung ; mud from flats, 

 swamps, ponds, rivers, &c. 



Clay is as beneficial to a sandy, 

 as sand is to a clayey soil. A 

 dressing of clay two or three inches 

 thick, laid on a sandy soil, and well 



