8 



THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



All gardeners agree that the soil best calculated for general 

 garden purposes should be of rather a light, rich, friable, loamy 

 texture, dry, mellow, and capable of being wrought at all sea- 

 sons, and of a good depth, that is, from two feet to three feet 

 and a half; and that the worst kinds are those of the very light 

 sandy, and stiff clayey texture. A loam of a middling texture, 

 rather inclining to sand, will be found the most suitable for the 

 majority of kitchen vegetables; the greater part of which seem 

 to delight in those soils, which are the easiest wrought at 

 most seasons of the year ; there are some soils, that have the 

 faculty of producing more early than others, and they are such 

 as are commonly called black sands, in which is found an 

 equal temper between dry and moist, accompanied with a good 

 exposure, and with an almost inexhaustible fertility, render- 

 ing them easy to be dug by the spade, and to be pene- 

 trated by the rain waters ; neither are they so apt to crack in 

 severe droughts like strong clayey soils, nor be parched with 

 heat like sandy ones, nor in hard fi'osts are the roots of plants 

 and seeds so apt to be thrown out of them as in some others. 

 If the soil be too strong, the roots of plants push weakly into 

 it, and are apt to canker and perish ; if too light, and at the 

 same time poor, the roots of vegetables will wander far in 

 search of nourishment, and be unable to collect a sufficient 

 quantity for their support and maintenance. To attain perfec- 

 tion on this head, our aim should be to make choice of a 

 proper natural soil at first, or to compose an artificial one as 

 near as possible to that above described. It is a false principle 

 to depend upon manures entirely, for were they to be had in 

 the greatest abundance, a too free application of them would 

 have effects highly injurious to the quality of vegetables in 

 general. In the formation of a garden, a moderate and pru- 

 dent expense should be bestowed at the beginning, if the under- 

 taking is to be ultimately crowned with success and satisfac- 

 tion. It would be desirable to have a variety of soils in every 

 garden, but this is seldom to be met with naturally, and few 

 are at the expense of constructing them artificially, as most of 

 the vegetables cultivated in our gardens seem to accommodate 

 themselves to the soil of which they are formed. 



