THE COMPLETE FARMER. 



SOILS. A farmer should be well informed of the nature 

 of soils, and of the various plants adapted to them. Some 

 useful plants flourish best in what is called poor land ; and 

 if cultivators were perfectly acquainted with the art of 

 adapting plants to soils, much manure might be saved, which 

 is wasted by injudicious and improper application. 



It is supposed by geologists that the whole of this earth 

 originally consisted of rocks, of various sorts, or combina- 

 tions. These rocks by the lapse of ages, and exposure to 

 air and Avater, became disintegrated or worn in part or alto- 

 gether to fine particles, which compose what is called earths 

 or soils. These soils are chiefly silica, [sand or earth of 

 flints] lime, [or calcareous earth] alumina, [clay] and mag- 

 nesia, [a mineral substance.] With these are blended ani- 

 mal and vegetable matters in a decomposed or decomposing 

 state, and saline, acid, or alkaline combinations. 



Plants are the most certain indicators of the nature of a 

 soil ; for while no practical cultivator would buy or under- 

 take to till land of which he knew only the results of chemi- 

 cal analysis, yet every farmer and gardener who knew the 

 timber and plants a soil spontaneously produced, would at 

 once be able to decide on its value for cultivation. 



It was a maxim of Kliyogg, a famous philosophical farmer 

 of Switzerland, 'that every species of earth may be instru- 

 mental to the improvement of another of opposite qualities.' 

 All sands are hot and dry — all clays, cold and wet ; and, 

 therefore, the manuring sandy lands with clay, or clay lands 

 with sand, is best for grain and pulse. But it is not the na- 



