16 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
that I am an advocate for early sowing and planting, even at 
the risk of losing a little seed, provided the ground be fit to 
receive it. A light, sandy soil will be benefited if worked 
when moist, as such treatment will have a tendency to make 
it more compact ; on the contrary, if a clayey soil be worked 
when toe wet, it kneads like dough, and never fails to bind 
when drought follows ; and this not only prevents the seed 
from rising, but injures the plants materially in their subse- 
quent growth, by its becoming impervious to moderate rains, 
dews, air, and the influence of the sun, all of which are 
necessary to the promotion of vegetation. 
Some gardeners, as well as some writers, recommend 
certain fixed days for sowing and planting particular kinds 
of seed; I think it necessary to guard my readers against being 
misled. The failure of crops may be often attributed to the 
observance of certain days for sowing. If some kinds of seed 
be sown when the ground is wet and cold, they will become 
chilled in the ground, and seldom vegetate. If they be sown 
in very dry weather, the germinative parts of the seed may 
become injured by the burning rays of the sun, or the young 
plants may get devoured by insects as fast as they come up. 
To obviate these difficulties, I have generally allowed a week 
or ten days for sowing the seed, intending the medium as the 
proper time for the vicinity of New-York. With this clearly 
borne in mind, the reader who observes the difference in the 
degrees of heat and cold in the different parts of the country v 
will know how to apply these instructions accordingly. 
Much depends on the manures used on particular kinds 
of soil. The great art of improving sandy and clayey soils, 
consists in giving the former such dressings of clay, cow 
dung, and other kinds of manure, as will have a tendency to 
bind and make them more compact, and consequently, more 
retentive of moisture ; and to the latter, coats of horse dung, 
ashes, sand, and such other composts as may tend to sepa- 
rate the particles and open the pores of the clay, so a3 to 
cause it to approach as nearly as possible to a loam. 
