SOIL, DRAINAGE AND PREPARATION. 2 



CHAPTER V. 

 SOIL, DRAINAGE AND PREPARATION. 



In the course of an experience of nearly forty years as 

 a market gardener, in the neighborhood of New York, I 

 have had, in the prosecution of the business, the oppor- 

 tunity of reclaiming large tracts of very different varities 

 of soil. Some of these, almost the first season, yielded a 

 handsome profit, while with others, the labor of years, 

 and the expenditure of large sums in extra manuring and 

 draining, have never been able to bring these uncongenial 

 soils up to the proper standard of productiveness. 



On many occasions I have referred to the great impor- 

 tance of selecting a proper quality of soil for all garden- 

 ing and farming operations, and the fact cannot be too 

 often nor too forcibly impressed that success hinges more 

 directly upon this than on anything else. Thousands are 

 every year ruined by a -bad selection of soil. I have 

 scores come to me in the course of every season for advice 

 in this matter of soils, but in most instances the advice is 

 asked too late ; the majority of the applicants having 

 been unfortunate enough to buy or rent land that they 

 had been led to believe was excellent, but only "run 

 down." *In my opinion this widespread notion of "ex- 

 hausted lands " is, to a great extent, a fallacy, and that 

 most of the lands said to be so exhausted never were 

 good, and nothing short of spreading a good soil over 

 them a foot thick would ever make them available. 



The practical test of the importance of a good soil for 

 market garden operations is clearly shown in a score of 

 cases in my vicinity. Wherever a man of ordinary indus- 

 try and intelligence has been fortunate enough to locate 

 on land that is naturally good, his success has been cer- 

 tain, while others that have not been able to procure such 

 land have had to struggle far harder for less returns ; in 



