32 FRUIT AND KITCHEN GARDEN. 
it be strongly impregnated with metallic substa ees, cr 
composed of cold wet clay, it will prove pernicious to the 
roots of fruit-trees, and will scarcely admit of a remedy. 
A decomposing rock, or a bed of sand, is preferable. 
Perhaps the best of all is a dry bed of clay, overlaying 
sandstone, which crops out within the general inclosure. 
If the inferior strata be retentive, and if water lodge in any 
part of the garden, draining should be carefully executed, 
s0 as to carry off the superfluous moisture. 
Preparatory to the distribution of the several parts of a 
garden, it is proper that the ground be trenched to the 
depth of two feet at least; but the deeper the better. In 
this operation all stones larger than a man’s fist are to be 
taken out, and all roots of trees, and of perennial weeds, 
are carefully to be extracted and cleared away. When the 
soil is not tolerably good to the depth of two feet, it will 
generally be proper to remove a portion of the subsoil; 
and its place should be made up bya proportional quantity 
of turf or fresh loam from the fields. If the subsoil be 
gravel, and the upper layer sandy, the additional earth 
should be clayey loam, or the scourings of ditches; but if 
the original body of soil be of a compact texture, the ma- 
terials introduced should be mixed with sand, marl, and 
other light opening substances. When the whole ground 
has been thus treated, a moderate liming will, in general, 
be useful. After this, supposing the work to have occupied 
most of the summer and autumn, the whole may be laid up 
in ridges, and left in this state for several months, to ex- 
pose as great a surface as possible to the action of the 
winter’s frost. The draining, trenching, and other opera- 
tions here recommended, will unavoidably be attended with 
considerable expense, and this expense will not immediately 
be followed by any perceptible beneficial result. The lapse 
