AGRICULTURE WITH CHEMISTRY. n^ 



as the proper mixture, or addition to soils, of substances 

 capable of retaining a due proportion of humidity, and 

 affording to plants the necessary supply of moisture. 

 This is to be effected by a due application of decayed ve- - 

 getables, (or as called in this Treatise) inert vegetable 

 matter. A superabundance of this substance will cause 

 the soil to be too spungy and o])en, and, on the alternate 

 change from frost to thaw, to spew or throw winter 

 corn out of the ground, as well as to injure or destroy 

 cabbage, green kail, and other i:>lants, produced by the 

 alteration, which the water imdergoes in such spungy 

 soils, from a liquid to a solid state, and vice versa. Thus 

 either chilling and rotting, or mechanically protruding or 

 forcing the roots of the plants out of the ground. But to 

 many stiff clayey soils, such vegetable matter may, in a 

 peculiar manner, be serviceable, and is easily procured, 

 in different states of preparation, from peat mosses. 



p 2 The 



