54 On the Improvement and Management of Soils. 
returned by the constant descent of leaves and limbs; and even 
trunks and roots every where intermingle their mouldering ele- 
ments, where succeeding products ascend with renovated vigor, 
and stand monuments of exalted verdure; while the various ani- 
mal inhabitants that consume so much of the produce as is neces- 
sary for their support, transmit continued returns by their excre- 
raentitious discharges, and the natural dissolution of their own 
carcasses. 
These are entertaining and interesting facts to all those who 
cultivate the soil, and exhibit incontrovertible rules by which all 
their proceedings ought to be influenced. 
Some kinds of manure are proper only for particular kinds of 
soil; ashes are a very valuable manure for light soils. Two years 
ago we strewed about twenty bushels of ashes on about half an 
acre of a dry sandy soil. The crops were evidently benefitted by 
this dressing. This is an application capable of producing 
moisture and retaining it in a dry soil, superior to any thing we 
have ever seen, and stamps an invaluable worth on ashes as a 
manure for this kind of soils. But on strong moist soils, they do 
not answer as good a purpose. 
Horn shavings and hogs' bristles, are an excellent manure for 
potatoes, strewed in the drills or hills over the sets, the latter at 
the rate of 'about twenty -five bushels to the acre. They produce 
earlier with these than any other manures we have ever tried ; 
they are also a good manure for grass and every other crop which 
we have applied them to. 
There are other ingredients, such as salt, charcoal, oil, &c., 
whose salutary eflfects on vegetation have been occasionally de- 
monstrated; and it is altogether probable, that the ingenious 
assiduity of philosophical perseverance, will still continue to con- 
tribute much additional information respecting the various pro- 
cesses connected with the fertility of soils and laws of vegetation. 
In our present state of advancement, we ought to husband well 
those maxims founded on the adamantine base of long and tried 
experience, and wield with a fearless hand that invaluable suppor^ 
on which both old age and youth may rest with security. 
