SELECTION OF SOIL. 19 



"would ever make them good. In a recent visit to the South, I met 

 a man who had gone down four years ago, and had bought an " ex- 

 hausted farm." With Northern energy and Northern capital he 

 hoped to restore it to what he had been told it had previously been 

 a fertile farm. A large expenditure and the hard work of several 

 years had failed to give a crop of corn that paid for the labor. I 

 could see no stalk that had been more than five feet high, and many 

 of them less than that. The poor, yellow soil in no place exceeded 

 four inches in depth, and was underlaid by a hard pan of clay. The 

 labor put upon such a soil will never pay. Millions of acres of lands 

 are purchased annually which are of but little more use for farming 

 purposes than the same area in a 15arren wilderness. Then, it may 

 be asked, How is a farmer to select his soil ? First, he should never 

 buy a farm without personal examination never take the seller's 

 word about it ; he may honestly believe that what he asserts is true, 

 or he may know it to be false ; but in either case if you are deceived 

 you suffer. Make the examination thorough ; observe the surround- 

 ings, and if the district is settled and cropped. Examine with care 

 the condition of crops on the farm and those upon land adjoining it. 

 If the crops are sickly looking and weak if the corn-stalks, instead 

 of being seven or eight feet in height, are but two or three you 

 had better lose your time and expenses and get home again, than 

 take the farm as a gift. If there are no crops growing, the char- 

 acter of the soil will be indicated by its appearance. A good soil is 

 usually of dark brown color ; the subsoil, lying immediately under 

 the top soil, should be of a porous nature, and it is usually, in first-rate 

 soils, of a yellowish, sandy loam. A gravelly subsoil is often found 

 underlying soils of good quality, but this is not so common. A sub- 

 soil of blue or yellow clay, such as might be used for brick making 

 and that is impervious to water, when near the surface, is a certain 

 indication of a poor quality of soil for either farming or gardening. 

 As an illustration of the value of different soils for market garden 

 purposes, there are men in our immediate neighborhood who pay 

 $100 per acre annual rent, and who, in the past ten or twelve years, 

 have made snug little fortunes upon eight or nine acres in cultivation. 

 Not more than half a mile away there are others paying less than half 

 that amount in rent, who have in the same time been struggling to 

 make both ends meet. Though equally industrious, and having as 

 good a knowledge of the business, their failure has resulted simply 

 from the difference in the character of the soil. In the one case the 

 land would be cheaper at $100 per acre annual rent than the other 

 would be if it could be had for nothing. 



