THE planter's GUIDE. 



137 



he was led into the erroneous belief that pulyerisation 

 could even supply the place of manures in farm manage- 

 ment. Modern science, however, would have enabled 

 him to discover, that although the comminuating of soils 

 incredibly multiplies the fibrous roots, or mouths of plants ; 

 although it also facilitates the speedy and perfect prepara- 

 tion of their food, and conducts the food so prepared 

 more regularly to the roots, yet of food itself it does not 

 communicate the smallest supply or portion beyond what 

 the soil actually possesses. As we cannot in these times 

 fall into the error of TuU, let us not omit, for our present 

 purpose, to put a due value on pulverisation, (which in 

 husbandry of late, as connected with deepening, seems to 

 be rather undervalued,) while we endeavour, by the methods 

 already pointed out, to add as much as possible to the 

 vigour and food of woody plants. 



Soils, then, may be most effectually improved by the 

 planter by altering their constituent parts, as has been above 

 shown, either by the addition of ingredients in which 

 they are deficient, or by the subtraction of others that too 

 much abound in them ; but in ordinary cases chiefly in 

 the former way, by admixture with other soils, and by the 

 application of mineral manures. The best natural soils 

 are certainly those of which the materials have been 

 derived from diff'erent strata, that have been minutely 

 divided by air and water, and are intimately blended 

 together. On this account, in improving soils by artificial 

 methods, the husbandman or the arboriculturist cannot 

 steer in so safe a course as by studying the effects of 

 intermixture, and imitating the chemistry of nature. 



In preparing soils on these principles, for the removal 

 of trees, the materials cannot often lie at a distance. In 

 this quarter of the island there is no man, possessing 

 grounds of any extent, who has not the command of more 



