SECTION VI. 



PEEPARATION OF THE SOIL FOR OPEN DISPOSITIONS OF TREES 

 # AND CLOSE PLANTATIONS. 



Haying sufficiently illustrated the new theory sug- 

 gested for transplantation, the first branch of practice 

 that claims attention is the preparation of the soil. 



The substances which constitute soils, as Sir H. Dayy 

 states, are certain compounds of the earths, — silica, lime, 

 alumina, magnesia^ — and of oxides of iron and manganesum ; 

 also animal and vegetable matters in a decomposing state ; 

 and saline, acid, or alkaline combinations.'" Soils afford 

 to plants a fixed abode, and the medium only of their 

 nourishment. Earths, exclusively of organised matter 

 and water, as the best phytologists admit, are of no other 

 use to woody plants than to fix them in the ground and 

 support them : they act merely as mechanical, or as 

 chemical agents : but earth and organic matter united 

 constitute what is properly called soils, and furnish to 

 plants at once support and nourishment. The true food 

 of plants, as the same instructive writer observes, is water 

 and decomposing organic matter. The earthy particles 

 are useful in retaining the water, so as to supply it in 

 due proportions to the roots of vegetables ; and they 

 likewise act in producing a proper distribution of the 



* Elements of Agricultural Chemistry. 



