22 



GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



atmosphere is itself veiy beneficial to clay soils, if done 

 wlien the earth is dry. A clay soil is exceedingly injured 

 if worked wet. A clay soil 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 im- 

 proved than a clay, as the per centage of clay required to 

 convert any sand into a loam is not very large and can 

 easily be added. Fortunately too in sandy soils, clay is 

 generally near at hand, often lying but a few inches be- 

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

 thinly over the surface in Autumn, are worth more ap 

 plied to such a soil than any manure, for the clay will 

 render manures permanent in their effect, which else 

 would leach through without benefit to the crops; the 

 effect of the clay itself is lasting. Lime, as before ob- 

 served, stiffens the texture of a sandy soil, and gympsum . 

 has the same effect. Ashes are also an excellent and pro- 

 fitable dressing to such a soil, leached or unleached, but 

 the best of all applications is a good clay marl. Peat, 

 vegetable manure, and carbonaceous matters of all kinds, 

 as refuse charcoal, are good applications to sandy soils, as 

 they enable them better to retain the fertilizing properties 

 of the manure applied, if they do not much affect the 

 texture of the soil. Sandy soils very often rest upon a 

 clay bottom, so that the thorough trenching a garden 

 should receive, wilT^often greatly improve its texture. 

 Working such a soil while wet, and the continual use of 

 the roller t\ ill also render it more tenacious. But clay is 

 /the great improver, and it is astonishing how small a 

 quantity of fine clay will cement a loose sand into a good 

 loam. 



