94 
Liglit-Land Fanning. 
solt pealy soils, upon which it is found to give greater strength 
to the straw of the grain grown upon them. Basaltic soils are 
generally of a better quality than those on the greenstone ; they 
are also not so elevated, and there is a greater accumulation of 
soil which is less stony and of a blacker colour. From tlie 
chaotic nature of the trap hills the greater proportion of the 
land upon them, and in their vicinity, is composed of a mixture 
of greenstone, rotten rock, and basalt in entlless variety. The 
higher parts are mostly of a very light character, but are in 
arable cultivation as far up the hill sides as 800 feet. In pro- 
portion as we descend to lower elevations the soil becomes 
blacker, thicker, and more fertile ; and in tlie bottoms of the 
valleys it changes to a strong, fertile, black loam, but in some 
cases to peat. The most of these soils are naturally fertile, or 
can be easily made so by a small amount of good farming. All 
kinds of manure, whether carbonaceous, ammoniacal, or mineral, 
act with great rapidity upon them, and quickly develop their 
natural capabilities : thev all contain lime combined with silica, 
and the yield of grain is generally large in proportion to the 
straw. Although, however, all trap soils have been proved to 
contain lime in some form or other, still they are greatly bene- 
fited by small doses of burnt lime, especially wherever they have 
been subjected to a lengthened continuance in pasture and are 
newly broken up, and also wherever the land has got into a foul 
condition from the prevalence of couch grass. Some of the 
tliinner soils are difficult to keep free from this weed, as it sends 
down its stolons or roots into the crevices of the under-lying 
rock, and as the plough and the harrow only succeed in breaking 
these over, a new growth springs up from every joint that 
remains anchored below. Upon the poorer soils turnips, barley, 
pasture grass, and oats are cultivated ; and on the better portions 
wheat, clover, beans, peas, and potatoes in addition. 
The light soils of the sandstone and coal districts are similar 
to those in England, and need not be particularized ; but we may 
notice a species of very light land called links, which is found in 
some of the littoral districts of the eastern coast of Scotland. 
Tiiese links are flat tracks, or stripes of land, running along the 
shores of the German Ocean and of the several firths which 
empty their waters into it. They are composed of what to 
appearance is nothing but pure sand, so light that whole fields 
of it, when newly ridged up for turnips, are either completely 
levelled again or much of it is blown away altogether by higli 
winds ; and even when the turnip plants are so far advanced as 
to have been singled out, those that are left are sometimes blown 
out by the root. This sort of land is left as much as possible in 
sheep pasture, and is seldom broken up except when it begins to 
