MIX 



[ 000 ] 



MOD 



depth of many feet, through strata of 

 barren gravel and red sand, for the 

 purpose of obtaining the white or silver 

 sand, which exists beneath them. 

 When this fine sand is removed, the 

 gravel and red sand is thrown .back 

 into the pit, the ground merely levelled, 

 and then either let to cottagers for gar- 

 dens, or planted with forest trees ; in 

 either case the effect is remarkable ; 

 all kinds of either fir or deciduous 

 trees will now vegetate with remarkable 

 luxuriance; and in the cottage-gardens 

 thus formed, several species of vege- 

 tables, such as beans and potatoes, will 

 produce very excellent crops, in the 

 very soils in which they would have 

 perished previous to their mixture, j 

 The permanent advantage of mixing j 

 soils, too, is not confined to merely 

 those entirely of an earthy composi- 

 tion; earths which contain inert or- 

 ganic matter, such as peat or moss 

 earth, are highly valuable additions to 

 some soils. Thus, peat earth was suc- 

 cessfully added to the sandy soils of i 

 Merionethshire, by Sir Kobert Yaughan. j 

 The Cheshire farmers add a mixture 

 of moss and calcareous earth to their 

 tight-bound earths, the effect of which 

 they describe as having ' a loosening 

 operation ; ' that is, it renders the soil 

 of their strong clays less tenacious, and, I 

 consequently, promotes the ready ac- j 

 cess of the moisture and gases of the | 

 atmosphere to the roots. The culti- 

 vator sometimes deludes himself Avith 

 the conclusion that applying sand, or 

 marl, or clay, to a poor soil, merely 

 serves to freshen it for a time, and that 

 the effects of such applications are 

 apparent for only a limited period. 

 Some comparative experiments, how- 

 ever, which were made sixteen years 

 since, on some poor hungry heath land 

 in Norfolk, have up to this time served 

 to demonstrate the error of such a 

 conclusion. In these experiments the 

 ground was marled with twenty cubic 

 yards only per acre, and the same com- 

 post ; it was then planted with a proper 

 mixture of forest trees, and by the side 

 of it a portion of the heath, in a state 

 of nature, was also planted with the 

 same mixture of deciduous and fir- 

 trees. 



39 



Sixteen years have annually served 

 to demonstrate, by the luxuriance of 

 the marled wood, the permanent effect 

 produced by a mixture of soils. The 

 growth of the trees lias been there 

 rapid and permanent ; but on the ad- 

 joining soil the trees have been stunted 

 in their growth, miserable in appear- 

 ance, and profitless to their owner. 



Another, but the least commonly 

 practised mode of improving the staple 

 of a soil by earthy addition, is claying ; 

 a system of fertilising, the good eifects 

 of which are much less immediately 

 apparent than chalking, and hence one 

 of the chief causes of its disuse. It 

 requires some little time to elapse, and 

 some stirring of the soil, before the 

 clay is so well mixed with a sandy 

 soil as to produce that general in- 

 creased attraction and retentive power 

 for the atmospheric moisture, which 

 ever constitutes the chief good result 

 of claying poor soils. Clay must be, 

 moreover, applied in rather larger pro- 

 portions to the soil than chalk; for not 

 only is its application rarely required 

 as a direct food for plants for the mere 

 alumina which it contains, since this 

 earth enters into the composition of 

 plants in very small proportion, but 

 there is also another reason for a more 

 liberal addition of clay being required, 

 which is the impure state in which the 

 alumina exists in what are commonly 

 called clay soils. Farm Encyc. 



MODE'CCA. (The Indian name. Nat. 

 ord., Papayads [Papayacese], Linn., 

 %'2-Dicecia 5 - Pentandria. Allied to 

 Cai'ica.) 



Stove evergreen climbing plants, resembling 

 Passion-flowers, from the East Indies. Cuttings 

 of young shoots, in May, in sandy soil, under a 

 bell-glasg, and in heat; peat and loam. Winter 

 temp., 48 to 55; summer, 60 to 75. 



i M. triloba'ta (three-lobed). 10. August. 1818. 

 j tubern'sa (tuberous). 10. August. 1822. 



MODI'OLA. (From modiolits, the nave 

 1 of a wheel ; referring to the formation 

 I of the seed-vessel. Nat. ord., Mallow - 

 \ worts [Malvaceae], Lirin., \ft-Mona- 

 \ delphla 8-Polyyynia. Allied to the 

 i Mallow.) 



Seeds, in spring j division of the two herba- 

 ceous kinds, at the same time, and by cuttings 

 of the young shoots under a hand-light ; com- 

 mon sandy loam. The herbaceous require ft 



