AULES AND SUGGESTIONS IN HUSBANDRY. 4T 



adds 20 per cent, annually to the fertility of an ordi- 

 nary soil, though probably for a limited period. Thi? 

 results from the fact that the crop is returned to the 

 soil in the droppings and urine of the animals which 

 graze it. 



17. Lime and clay are essential in a wheat soil. 

 Indian corn delights in a rich, dry sandy loam. Tur- 

 nips excel on dry sandy soils. Rye is impatient of 

 wet. Barley does best on a clay loam, as do beets, 

 carrots, and peas. Oats and potatoes find a conge- 

 nial bed in cool moist grounds, though for the lattei 

 the surface stratum should be light or mellow. Of 

 the grasses, the tap-rooted, as clover, lucerne, &c., 

 require a deep soil, permeable to their long roots, and 

 free from water; the fibrous-rooted, as the tall-oat, 

 orchard, &c., thrive upon soils that are shallower ; 

 and the rough-stalked meadow, red-top, bent, and 

 some of the festuca family, are congenial to, and 

 often natural in, moist or swampy grounds. The 

 timothy, or meadow cat's-tail, the main dependance 

 for winter forage in the Northern states, adapts its 

 roots, it is said, to its location ; being fibrous-rooted 

 upon dry, and bulbous-rooted upon moist grounds ; 

 and, therefore, adapted to any situation. 



18. Where arable and mixed husbandry prevail, 

 the natural fertility of a farm cannot be kept up or 

 increased from the resources of the farm stock with- 

 out resort to an alternation or change of crops. Al- 

 though the diminution of fertility may be impercep- 

 tible in some extraordinary cases, and although 

 some soils seem naturally and peculiarly adapted to 

 certain crops, yet, where the same crop is grown on 

 one piece of ground in successive years, deterioration 

 as certainly goes on as the sun shines by day. 

 Whether, according to the modern theory of certain 

 European philosophers of high repute, the excre 

 mentitious matter thrown into the soil by a growing 

 crop is poisonous to its species ; or whether, as we 

 maintain, each species requires and exhausts, 01 par 



