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what there is of cold and discomfort in working in 

 the muddy ditch on days that do no discredit to Jan- 

 uary ; and they will tell you that when cased in boots 

 and mittens they will not ask for a more comfortable 

 place. As far as the farmer has opportunity to col- 

 lect materials for his manure heap, and drain his wet 

 lands at his most leisure season, prudence directs 

 him to embrace them. But my subject is manures. 

 Chaptal, in his Agricultural Chemistry, says that " the 

 excellence of a soil depends upon its containing the 

 right proportion of each species of earth, and that 

 is supposed to be the best soil, in which the virtues 

 of one portion of its constituent principles correct 

 the faults or defects of the rest." To spread the 

 sandy wash obtained by the road-side upon sandy 

 and gravelly soils ; to put a dressing of vegetable 

 matter upon the peat meadow or on a very black soil, 

 would be " carrying coals to New Castle." It might 

 not be entirely useless, but there is so much of the 

 article already there that it might better be carried to 

 places where it is less abundant. Is it certain that 

 two loads of best manure from the stable would be 

 much more serviceable on a light sandy soil than 

 one load of manure and one of clay or tenacious 

 mud ? Can we say with confidence that pure animal 

 manure will add more to the fertility of a vegetable 

 soil than manure with an equal quantity of loam or 

 sand ? Would any other dressing be more valuable 

 upon a clayey soil than one composed of half sand ? 

 May it not be true that much labour might be very 

 profitably spent in carting soils from one portion of 

 the farm to another, thus making more fertile mix- 



