52 On the Improvement and Management of Soils. 
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for the accommodation of a family. Sound philosophy and good 
taste require that the site, form and character of a building should 
be suited to its use and the expression of its destination. A 
grove affords to a house a natural protection, in both summer and 
winter." 
ON THE IMPROVEMENT AND MANAGEMENT OF SOILS. 
Perhaps there is no subject of greater importance to the agri- 
culturist, than a right understanding of the principles on which 
the fertility of the soil depends. In many excellent treatises on 
manures, we find considerable lists of various substances, all cal- 
culated to support the productiveness of the soil; and experience 
has long proved the necessity of some return being made to those 
soils which are kept under constant cultivation. 
Every tree and every plant in growing takes something from 
the earth which makes it poorer. Every vegetable in dying and 
mouldering back again to dust, adds something to the earth which 
makes it the richer. It is the same when an animal dies. Every 
thing which has possessed life, whether animal or vegetable, 
having undergone putrefaction and being returned back again to 
dust becomes food for the support of vegetable life. 
The quantity of this return, or as it is generally termed, manure, 
that is requisite to continue the soil in a productive state, varies 
in different soils, and those kinds which continue the longest pro- 
ductive with the least additional supply, are justl}^ styled the 
richest or best. Experience has also proved that such soils are 
those which contain moderate proportions of all the elementary 
constituents of soils, which are but few and generally found com- 
bined with the clayey, sandy, and vegetable earths. Nothing, 
therefore, appears more evident than the propriety of assimilating 
as much as possible, a regular intermixture of these ingredients. 
When the upper surface is very sandy, the most excellent layers 
of clay or marl, are frequently found at no great depth below, 
