AND RURAL ECONOMIST. 



13 



©bviously on account of the increased warmth ; it being a 

 well-known fact, that dark colored bodies absorb caloric 

 more readily, and in larger proportions than those of a lighter 

 hue. 



Soils which absorb the most moisture are the most fertile. 

 Sir Humphrey Davy observed, ' I have compared the ab- 

 sorbent powers of many soils with respect to atmospheric 

 moisture, and I have ahvays found it greatest in the most 

 fertile soils; so that it affords one method of judging of the 

 productiveness of land.' 



The methods of improving soils are too numerous to be 

 here fully specified. We will, hoAvever, quote one mode of 

 restoring worn out fields to the fertility of new lands, or 

 lands lately cleared from their aboriginal growth of timber, 

 quoted from a ' Dissertation on the mixture of soils," for which 

 the author, the Rev. Morrel Allen, of Pembroke, Massa- 

 chusetts, was awarded a premium by the Plymouth County 

 Agricultural society."^ 



'Particles in a soil, which had long been in contact, and 

 in consequence of long connexion lost much of the energy 

 of their action on plants, are separtcd in mixing soils, placed 

 in new connexions, and act with renewed vigor. But the 

 most permanent and best effects are always expected from 

 the mixture of soils of different qualities. When the object 

 is to produce as much immediate influence as possible, merely 

 tu assist one short rotation of crops, to have the application 

 we make act chiefly as manure, then we may take our ma- 

 terials from any situation where we know \ egetable substan- 

 ces have fallen and decayed. 



'We may go into forests, and in certain stages of the 

 growth of the wood, without any perceptible injury, skim 

 the surface of the whole lot. This soil of the woods, carried 

 in sufficiently large quantities on to old fields, will restore 

 them to original productiveness. And this will sometimes 

 prove an inexhaustible resource for renewing old fields ; for 

 as often as the fields decline, the soil in the wood lot will be 

 again renewed and fit to remove. For the same purposes 

 the earth should be carried from the sides of walls and fences, 

 where the leaves have been lodged from the forests. It 

 should also be carried from hollows and temporary ponds, 

 which in certain seasons of the year become di-y, and afford 



* See N. E. Farmer, vol. x. p. 249. 

 2 



