36 FAMILY RECEIPTS. 



a farm for grain; and grass, for pasture, and for hay, 

 which grows on such land, is always very inferior in 

 richness, to that groAvn on land that is warm and dry. 

 The difference is very great. The most nutritious grass, 

 grows only where the land is so dry, and warm, that it 

 must be sown frequently with seed, in order to keep up 

 the sward. This is what I call a medium soil, good, alike 

 for grass and grain, on which I should no more expect 

 crops of grass, except from seed, than of grain. One 

 acre of such ground, in pasture, or meadow, will keep 

 as much stock as one and a half, or even two, or three, 

 of your black muck cold and wet grass land. The ap- 

 pearance, to be sure, in pasture, will be very different. 

 The grass may be very long, in your wet, cold land 

 pasture, but yet very poor feed: in the other, it will 

 be far more nutritious, short and sweet, like a well 

 told story. 



With land that is dry and v/arm, the good husband- 

 man, may always succeed in getting good crops. He 

 may even make the soil as fertile as that of the very 

 richest of land, and far more sure in its crops. Good 

 husbandry, constantly enriches the soil. But it is al- 

 most impossible to do this, with land naturally cold, and 

 wet. It has not v, armth enough of temperament, to be 

 sensitive to kind treatment, but is like some men, so 

 phlegmatic, as to offer no principle of life to act upon. 

 Heat, and cold, are always antipodes. You can never, 

 by the utmost kindness, overcome natural antipathies. 

 The very cause of the muck, which misleads so many 

 in the choice of lands, is a natural coldness in the soil, 

 where leaves are presei-vcd from decay, by cold, and by 

 wet, not moisture, but an excess of wetness. Such 

 lands, when cleared, will produce grain crops, while the 

 muck lasts, and is rotting by the power of the sun, but 

 is sterile, ever afterwards, unless covered with a new 

 soil, meide artificially, and at more expense than the cost 

 of warm and good land. This can be effected by 

 trench-ploughing, under-draining, quick-lime as a ma- 

 nure, bringing up the hard-pan, almost always the only 

 sub-soil of mucky lands, but the cost is too great for £iny 

 thing but experiment, and on a small scale. 



