FOR MOWING AND I'ASTURE LANDS. 147 



For tlie food of plants is found in all manures, and the value of 

 these depends upon the quantity they contain. 



The methods of renovating mowing and pasture lands by 

 means of top dressings, do not essentially differ. We have 

 seen an interesting experiment during the present season. On 

 different part?; of the same field, simple meadow mud, rich barn 

 manure, and liquid manure impregnated with lime, were used 

 as a top dressing. The mud was hauled out last autumn and 

 thrown in heaps, and there left to the action of the frosts and 

 snows of winter. In spring it was spread nearly at the same 

 time the other manure was applied. Strange as it may seem, 

 the top to which the mud was applied, appeared to far the best 

 advantage. The grass was heavier, and after the crop had 

 been removed, that part of the field on which the mud was ap- 

 plied, came in more quickly and luxuriantly than the rest. 

 This field was a light gravelly soil, which had not been under 

 very high cultivation. A large proportion of the soils of Massa- 

 chusetts are composed of gravel with a mixture of sand. These 

 soils peculiarly need the constituents of marl and meadow mud. 

 Marl and mud contain the carbonate, or in some cases the sul- 

 phate of lime, which is the same as plaster of Paris. They 

 contain a large mixture of clay, which sandy or gravelly soils 

 need. And on these soils clay mud has been found to do the 

 best. Peat mud is a rich vegetable food, and if a small pro- 

 portion of potash, or ashes, is added, it is nearly, if not quite, 

 as valuable as the best barn manure. Light soils are always 

 improved by any substances which make them firmer and more 

 compact. Stiff clay soils, on the other hand, are benefitted by 

 applications which make them lighter and more permeable. 

 No one of the three kinds of earth, the sand, the clay, and the 

 lime, when unmixed with the other varieties, would be capa- 

 ble of supporting vegetation. The mixture of them, when 

 any one predominates, will correct and improve them. For* 

 the fertility of soils depends upon the proportion of their con- 

 stituents. In some marls the clay predominates. These should 

 be used on the light sandy soils. In others the sand predomi- 

 nates. These are adapted to stiffer lands. Here the judg- 

 ment must be exercised. The practice of mixing soils has al- 

 n^^vs bpe" attended with success when judiciously in"'—-- ' 



