48 GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



found by experiment only necessary to tile the lower 

 portions of the land, and the uplands will also be suffi- 

 ciently drained. 



Ashes and lime each have the property of rendering 

 heavy soils lighter, and light soils more tenacious, and 

 both more productive, especially for potatoes, turnips, 

 beets, and peas, which delight in calcareous soils. In cold 

 climates, plowing clay lands deeply in the fall, and expos- 

 ing them to the action of the winter's frost, is very bene- 

 ficial, but in sections where there is little frost and abun- 

 dant and heavy washing rains, it is worse than useless. 

 Turning under coarse vegetable or carbonaceous matter, 

 as straw, leaves, pine straw, corn-stalks, a crop of cow- 

 peas, clover, or any other green crop, bog, or leaf-mould, 

 decomposed peat, and even tan-bark itself, so deeply be- 

 neath the surface as not to interfere with cultivation, will 

 by the slow decomposition of these materials much in- 

 crease the fertility of a clay soil by improving its texture. 

 It is most improved by drainage, if needed. 



The frequent working of the soil with the hoe and 

 spade, thereby admitting the ammonia and fertilizing- 

 gases of the atmosphere, is itself very beneficial to clay 

 soils, if done when the earth is dry. A clay soil is exceed- 

 ingly injured if worked while wet. It is so difficult to 

 work, and so liable to bake into a hard crust after every 

 rain, that it will well repay, where materials for the 

 purpose are at all convenient, to lay out a good deal of 

 time and labor in improving its mechanical texture. 



The texture of a sandy soil is much more easily improved 

 than a clay, as the percentage of clay required to con- 

 vert any sand into a loam is not very large, and can easily 

 be added. Fortunately, too, in sandy soils, clay is gen- 

 erally near at hand, often lying but a few inches beneath 

 the surface. A few loads of stiff clay, scattered thinly 

 over the surface in autumn, are worth more applied to 



