TOMATOES 5 



PREPARATION OF THE Soil, 



No sane and practical writer will dogmatise at any length 

 about soils. He would probably expound his theory as to what 

 constitutes an ideal soil for his purpose, but he would at once 

 see how futile it would be to tell a grower of Waltham Cross 

 that he ought to have the sand of Cobo, or to tell a grower at 

 Cobo that he ought to have the clay of Waltham Cross. The 

 majority of the tomato growers in Guernsey possess a soil 

 whose principal constituent is disintegrated granite, and this 

 is the very opposite to the alluvial loam of Berkshire and the 

 Thames Valley ; yet in each of these localities, and others 

 equally dissimilar, stretching up to the rocky shallow soils in 

 parts of Scotland, crops of equal weight and quality are grown 

 regularly year after year. How, then, is it possible to dogmatise ? 

 Is it not rather more useful if we lay down what we consider the 

 ideal, and leave it to the man who understands his own soil 

 best to work it and improve it along that line ? Yet even that 

 in some instances is suggesting too much. The sand of Cobo, 

 heavily dressed with vraic (sea- weed), the only obtainable 

 commodity for the purpose, does not approach one step nearer 

 to the Berkshire loam because of that dressing. We cannot 

 ask the Waltham Cross grower to dig trenches in his clay, carry 

 hundreds of loads of it away and replace with top spit of the 

 Hertfordshire pastures. The cost would be prohibitive. Yet 

 without taking such an extreme step something might still be 

 done. 



We must first and foremost regard the soil as a medium, possess- 

 ing certain mechanical qualities which provide favourable condi- 

 tions for the ramifications of myriads of roots. It obviously must 

 not be a medium which can harden down like bricks and become 

 impervious to roots. It must not be of that consistency which 

 prevents the draining away of unnecessary moisture. It must 

 not be so light as to offer no solid hold to the roots, or to induce 

 excessive evaporation. It may or may not be a complete com- 

 post, carrying within itself those chemical elements which go 

 to build up healthy plants, but as these can always easily be 

 added in correct proportions, they need not be made a matter 

 of the first consideration. 



