VEGETABLE FOOD. 273 



When the texture or constitution of the soil re- 

 quires amelioration, other expedients are had recourse 

 to besides adding- to its fertility. The best soils are 

 composed of nearly equal portions of sand and clay, 

 together with the detritus of calcareous rocks, and 

 decayed vegetable or alluvial matter, generally called 

 loam. Its consistence is friable ; readily admitting 

 air and rain, and as readily discharging all excess of 

 the latter only retaining, or imbibing from the air, 

 as much as is suitable to vegetation : and neither 

 liable to be parched in summer, nor drenched with 

 surface water in winter. 



If a cultivator be situated on a soil which is dif- 

 ferent from the above, his main endeavour is to 

 improve, by bringing his land as near to this standard 

 as he has means or opportunity to accomplish. 

 Covering his sand with clay or marl, or his clay with 

 sand, is the most direct, though a most expensive 

 mode, and which but few can undertake except on a 

 small scale ; yet when these two descriptions of soil 

 lie contiguous, the union may be performed gradually, 

 and a garden or a farm may be completed in no great 

 length of time. 



Such improvement of the staple of land, with perio- 

 dical dressings of good manure, would amend and 

 render it capable of bearing any kind of crop; and 

 moreover facilitate all operations necessary to be 

 performed upon it ever after. 



Lime is much used as a quickener of the soil, and 

 for the purpose of banishing insects, and particularly 



