5SS DECEMBER. 



A few glass funnels, ribbed, for filtrating with 

 blotting-paper. A hydrostatic balance. 



The whole of this apparatus may cost from ten 

 to twenty pounds. 



The most material point in examining a soil, and 

 it is a point in which the authors I have read have 

 committed great errors, is that of taking the speci- 

 men. I have always crossed a field in several direc- 

 tions, and taken about a tea spoonful in abundance 

 of places, suppose an hundred ; and thus taking 

 about a quart, reserved it for trials in glass phials 

 with ground stoppers. The under stratum should 

 be examined, to know if it be retentive, permeable, 

 or calcareous. 



All specimens may be kept a month before try- 

 ing, which will enable the farmer to compare vari- 

 ous soils with his own,, under every similar circum- 

 stance, 



In trials with the gun-barrel, he may put one 

 ounce in it, and then fill up with pounded flint 

 boiled in muriatic acid, which yields no air or gas. 



The experiments should be double ; in this dry, 

 and also in the humid way : upon the latter the fol- 

 lowing passage from Dr. Fordyce's Elements of 

 Agriculture, will explain .his method of analysis. 



" Take one thousand grains of the dry soil, apply 

 to it half an ounce of muriatic acid, and four ounces 

 of water in a glass, stone- ware, or porcelain vessel, 

 sufficiently large ; let them stand together till no 

 more effervescence takes place ; and if it was very 

 considerable, pour in half an ounce more of the 



acid ; 



