A FEW WORDS ON THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 419 



of the soil, and mixing it with the soil as you would manure ; the 

 other (a less expensive and more gradual process), is to manure the 

 kitchen garden every year with compost, in which clay or strong 

 loam forms a large proportion. 



It may seem, to many persons, quite out of the question to at- 

 tempt to ameliorate sandy soils by adding clay. But it is surprising 

 how small a quantity of clay, thoroughly intermingled with the 

 loosest sandy soil, will give it a different texture, and convert it into 

 a good loam. And even in sandy districts, there are often valleys 

 and low places, quite near the kitchen garden, where a good stock 

 of clay lies (perhaps quite unsuspected), ready for uses of this kind. 



In the Journal of the Agricultural Society of England, a case 

 is quoted (vol ii., p. 67), where the soil was a white sand, varying 

 in depth from one to four feet ; it was so sterile that no crops could 

 ever be grown upon it to profit. By giving it a top-dressing of clay, 

 at the rate of 150 cubic yards to the acre, the whole surface of the 

 farm so treated was improved to the depth of ten or twelve inches, 

 so as to give excellent crops. 



Since a soil, once rendered more tenacious in this way, never 

 loses this tenacity, the improvement of the kitchen garden, where 

 economy is necessary, might be carried on gradually, by taking one 

 or two compartments in hand every year ; thus, in a gradual man- 

 ner, bringing the whole surface to the desired condition. 



A great deal may also be done, as we have just suggested, by a 

 judicious system of manuring very sandy soils. It is the common 

 practice to enrich these soils precisely like all others ; that is, with 

 the lighter and more heating kinds of manures; stable-dung for 

 example. Nothing could be more injudicious. Every particle of 

 animal manure used in too light a soil ought, for the kitchen garden, 

 to be composted, for some time previously, with eight or ten times 

 its bulk of strong loam or clay. In this way, that change in the 

 soil, so much to be desired, is brought about ; and the whole mass 

 of clay-compost, made in this way, is really equal in value, for such 

 sandy soils, to the same bulk of common stable manure. 



Whatever the soil of a kitchen garden, our experience has 

 taught us that it should be deep. It is impossible that the steady 

 and uniform moisture at the roots, indispensable to the continuous 



