COLD AND SOLR SOILS. 67 



as is well known, when the muck is taken out and 

 dried, it becomes a valuable manure : this is because 

 air and warmth obtain access, and the process of 

 decomposition goes on again. In order to avoid mis- 

 apprehension, it ought here to be mentioned that these 

 acids in small proportions are really useful in the soil, 

 as furnishing a portion of their food to plants. It is 

 the excess of them that does so much injurj'. 



It is not only in swamps that this injurious formation 

 occurs : there is much land which is too wet in the 

 early part of the season, or in which are springs that 

 saturate the surface; this land may be hard, and may 

 even bear ploughing, yet still it is what farmers call 

 cold and sour. These are exactly the proper words, 

 for they truly express its qualities. Considerable and 

 injurious quantitic>s of these vegetable acids are 

 formed; and the water, by coastant evaporation from 

 the surface, prcxluces cold; the grass is scanty and 

 poor, while rushes show themselves in the wettest 

 spots. There are large tracts of such land as this in 

 almost every part of the country. Farmers tliink such 

 land too dry for draining, and yet that is the only way 

 to make any permanent improvement upon it. It is 

 cold and late in sprim;, apt to bake hard in summer, 

 and to suffiT from early IrasLs in autumn. It is not 

 in a fit condition to supj)ort g<HxJ crojxs, and the only 

 way to bring it into a g<KHl state is to dry it. 



Some land is dr)- on the surface, but has a wet sub- 

 soil : when the roots of the plants get down to this, 

 they find at ont-e injurioiLs f()o<i, not only the acidi 

 already mentioned, but inorganic substances; the pro- 

 toxide of inm, describtfl in Chapter V., is ver>' apt to 

 ill such places, an<l is at once fatal if the plant 

 ud no nutriment in othe.r directions. In this case 

 ItKi ihe only reme<ly is to drain. The ijood elfects of 

 this o{H>ration on all soils suffer i ml' Inun anv of the 

 causes above mentioned, are v< !e, and 



must briefly be specifietl before l; i, ....wrt.*. 



