46 GROW YOUR OWN VEGETABLES 



nitrogen, potash, and lime. The green sand of Kent, 

 Surrey, Bedfordshire, and Cambridgeshire contains, 

 however, an abundance of potash. The Bagshot sands 

 of Essex, Surrey, and South Hampshire are deficient in 

 phosphates ; in fact, few parts of the country stand in 

 need of more scientific manuring than these. The dark 

 red sands and loams of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, 

 Hereford, Monmouth, parts of South Wales and parts of 

 the Scottish border are well supplied with phosphates 

 and often with nitrogen, but they lack potash and lime. 

 The lighter red sands of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, 

 Warwickshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire are always in 

 need of strong dressings of lime and often of potash. 

 Chalk soils contain a sufficiency of phosphates and lime, 

 but are lacking in potash and nitrogen. Clay soils are 

 the reverse of chalk soils, being poor in phosphates, rich 

 in potash, and fairly well supplied with nitrogen, though 

 the latter, owing to the cold nature of the ground, is 

 seldom available for plant growth until late in the 

 season. Certain clays are very deficient in lime, par- 

 ticularly those in South-east Essex, Mid-Kent, South 

 Hampshire, West Devon, Cornwall, the shaley clays of 

 North and South Wales, those on the coal measures in 

 Lancashire, South-west Yorkshire, Northumberland, 

 and Durham. Clays usually containing plenty of lime 

 are found in East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Nottingham- 

 shire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, 

 Gloucestershire, and parts of Somerset and Devon. The 

 boulder-drift clays capping the hills of Norfolk, Suffolk, 

 Essex, and Cambridgeshire are usually adequately 

 supplied with lime. The fen soils contain almost all the 

 food requirements of plants, but nitrogen is found in 



