54 AGRICULTURE 



hand or horse implements. Such delay, which 

 may extend over days if not weeks, is quite 

 fatal to success in market gardening or any 

 intensive form of cultivation. As a con- 

 sequence one seldom finds clay utilized 

 for anything but the growth of what one may 

 call standard farm crops, cultivated on the 

 conventional system. 



Sandy soils are not only light, dry, and 

 warm, but they are also markedly non- 

 absorptive in respect of soluble plant food, 

 so that there is greater danger of loss of such 

 material from sands than from any other 

 soil. Other things being equal, therefore, 

 one would use sulphate of ammonia rather 

 than nitrate of soda, so that any little power 

 of absorbing nitrogen that sandy soil may 

 possess will have an opportunity of exerting 

 itself. It is seldom prudent to apply very 

 heavy dressings of artificial manures at long 

 intervals, but in the case of sandy land it is 

 specially desirable that manurial substances 

 should be put on in comparatively small doses 

 and at short intervals. Sandy soil, especially 

 if it holds a fair amount of lime, is well adapted 

 for the use of manures that require to be 

 decomposed before serving as the food of 

 plants. Such substances as bone meal, 

 dissolved bones, fish manure, and rape meal, 



