34 SOIL. 



roots are sources of annoyance in handling the 

 soil. Where one has land that can be spared he 

 should allow for every thousand plants not less 

 than one-twentieth of an acre in grass upon which 

 he can depend for soil. The soil after being used 

 can be hauled out and after being spread on the 

 ground be reseeded and in six or eight years 

 will propably be as good as new. In the majority 

 of cases it is necessary to purchase the soil and this 

 is usually done through contractors and sometimes 

 from farmers who have the sod to spare. It is 

 customary to pay from seventy-five cents to one 

 dollar per cubic yard for good sod cut three or four 

 inches thick and delivered on the place. A cubic 

 yard contains twenty-seven cubic feet, that is, a pile 

 one foot high, three feet wide, and nine feet long. 

 More often the soil is bought merely by the ' 'load, " 

 a load being usually about a yard sometimes a 

 little more, sometimes less. Seventy-five cents to 

 one dollar per load is the price usually paid for soil. 

 Some prefer to stack the soil, that is, to cut it 

 and pile it in a heap in the early fall, but this is not 

 always practicable, hence very often the work is 

 left till spring. On the whole we can see no 

 advantage in the early fall stacking unless it can be 

 done during a time when work is not pressing. 

 Where practicable our preference is to cut the sod 

 in the fall and allow it to stand in the field unpiled 

 until it has been frozen hard three or four times. 

 In this way grubs, nematodes, and the larvae of 



