80 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



that essential particular that the clay soil is naturally 

 richer in the mineral constituents required by your 

 crops. Potash, Soda, and Phosphorus, which you 

 must supply to a light soil before you sow it, you 

 have only to develope in a clay soil by deep and 

 frequent stirring, and submitting to the oxidation of 

 the atmosphere. The green-crop, with its carbon- 

 obtaining leaves, will no doubt supply organic wealth 

 to either ; but inorganic food can come from the soil 

 alone ; and if the soil be able to supply it from its 

 own resources, one-half the value of the green-crop, 

 as a fertilizer, is renounced. Its remaining value, as 

 a collector of organic matter from the atmosphere, is 

 the point upon which the question will be poised, of 

 its adoption on a soil which after effectual drainage, 

 sub-pulverization, and liming, still retains the cha- 

 racter of a ' clay/ Even upon such land, (which is 

 not so plentiful as some imagine,) experience has yet 

 to prove how far, by deep ploughing and sub-soiling 

 immediately after harvest, and making the most of 

 suitable weather between that time and the following 

 summer, the useful Swede or Turnip may take its 

 place in a six-course system as profitably as in the 

 four-course system upon lighter soils. The bare 

 fallow is too ancient, too prospectivcly laborious, and 



