SOIL MAKING. 



9 



to light lands, to loams and to clays, and only novices and wealthy 

 amateurs would seek to apply the wrong system to their land. 



Further, much of the need for these additions has disappeared 

 since artificial fertilizers came into use. Farmers and gardeners 

 can now add to their soils in a concentrated form the phosphates 

 and potash that formerly necessitated large additions of mineral 

 matter if they were to be supplied at all. 



The amount of organic matter is much more easily under control. 

 It can be added in various ways : by dressings of farm-yard manure, 

 or by imitating Nature and ploughing or digging in crops that have been 

 grown for that purpose. This is one of the most efficient ways of 

 making soil. Of all crops known leguminous crops are the best for 

 the purpose. Some can be cut for hay or fed to live stock and will 

 still leave enough residue to make an enormous difference to the stock 

 of organic matter in the soil when the rest of the leaves, stems, and roots 

 are ploughed in. Others are better ploughed straight in. This method 

 of soil control is very ancient and goes back to the earliest days of 

 agriculture. Theophrastus, writing 300 years before Christ, says that 

 in Macedonia and Thessaly beans were grown to be ploughed in at 

 flowering time. Varro, about 50 B.C., says, " Some things should be 

 sown with a view not so much to present profit as to next year's crop, 

 because when cut down and left they improve the soil. Thus, lupins 

 before they produce many pods, and sometimes beanstalks, if the 

 podding stage be not so far advanced that it is profitable to pull 

 the beans, are usually ploughed into poor land for manure/' 



The beneficial effect of the clover crop has been known from early 

 times and was a great feature in the husbandry of Flanders, which 

 has always been a model for the rest of Europe to follow. Thus, 

 Weston in 1650 writes : "... after that Crop is off, you may sowe 

 the same Land with Oats ; and upon them Clover grass seed onelie 

 harrowing it with bushes, which will come up after the Oats are mowed, 

 and that year yield you a verie great Pasture till Christmas ; and the 

 next year following you may cut that grass three times, and it will 

 everie time bear such a burden, and so good to feed all sorts of Cattel 

 as the best meadows in the Countrie do not yield the like. 0 Instances 

 could be multiplied to show the enormous benefits of leguminous 

 crops on soil fertility. We might quote our older writers. Yaran- 

 ton, who in 1663 declared that " clover doth so frame the land that 

 being ploughed it will yield three or four years together a crop of 

 wheat, and after that a crop of oats," becomes so enthusiastic that 

 he bursts into song : 



" When poets call for aid, do they invoke 

 The oyl of barley, hops, or IndiaD smoke ? 

 Must Bacchus fill their veins ? these drown and smother 

 And dull their writs ; give me the oyl of clover, 

 One drop of which contains such virtue in it 

 It makes a perfect poet in a minute. 

 I crave no aid ; give me the goose's quill 

 That's fed with clover, and I'll try my skill. 

 But three-leaved grass soon yield a three-fold profit ; 

 Three volumes may be writ in praises of it." 



