COMPOSTS SUITABLE FOR VINES. I/ 



manure at the seasons when it is most required, I can 

 see no reason, but the opposite, in favour of making 

 vine-borders so rich as some advocate. When the soil 

 is what is termed clayey loam, I would add the same 

 ingredients to it, with the addition of two cart-loads to 

 the ten of burned clay, which acts as a mechanical dis- 

 integrant, and keeps the particles of clay from getting 

 too close together, and so preventing the entrance of air 

 into the soil, or the percolation of water through it. Of 

 burned clay, Dr Lindley, in his able work, ' The Theory 

 and Practice of Horticulture/ speaks to this effect : 

 " Why burned clay should be better than that sort of 

 soil in its ordinary condition is sufficiently obvious 

 its texture is changed. In its natural state it is so ad- 

 hesive that air cannot get into it. It also offers great 

 mechanical opposition to the passage of roots through 

 its viscid mass, and hence it is exclusively inhabited by 

 a coarse and worthless vegetation. Burning changes 

 all this ; the particles of clay lose their adhesiveness, 

 and this gives a new character to the soil, which offers 

 freedom to the entrance of air and exit of water, and 

 which crumbles readily away beneath the advancing 

 roots of any race of plants. But that is not all the 

 difference betwixt burned and unburned clay : the roots 

 of plants which it previously contained were unable to 

 decay, and are now by fire reduced to their saline con- 

 stituents, and so enrich the soil ; and, moreover, the 

 burned particles of clay acquire the power of absorbing 

 ammonia from the air, and holding it within their pores 

 till showers fall and wash it into the land, where it 

 immediately acts as a nourishing food for plants." 

 When the soil is what is termed light sandy loam 



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