THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE SOIL. 



27 



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 improv- 

 ed 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 gene- 

 rally 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 

 such a soil than any manure, for the clay will render ma- 

 nures 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 observed, stiffens 

 the texture of a sandy soil, and gypsum has the same 

 effect. Ashes, leached or unleached, are also an excellent 

 and profitable dressing to such a soil, but the best of all 

 applications is a good clay marl. Peat, vegetable manure, 

 and carbonaceous matters of all kinds, such as refuse 

 charcoal, are good applications to these sandy soils, as 

 they enable them better to retain the fertilizing proper- 

 ties of the manure aj)plied, though they do not much affect 

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

 a clay bottom, so that the thorough trenching which a 

 garden should receive will often greatly improve its tex- 

 ture. W orking such a soil while wet, and the continual 

 use of the roller, will 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. 



To conclude, in regard to the texture of soils, choose or 

 make for your garden a loam of medium texture a little 

 inclined to sand, and the finer its particles the better. 

 Clays and sands both become objectionable as they depart 

 from this friable, loamy texture, and the first step in their 

 improvement is to bring them to this condition. A medium 

 consistency best agrees with vegetation. 



