December 6, 1883. J 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
493 
in the guide-ring f as the plant is lifted. When the requisite height is 
reached, the new tub is put under the plant, and the latter is let down 
P e g by peg in the same way as it was raised up. The less the distance 
between the holes the better, and never raise up or let down more than 
one hole at a time. The contrivance gives perfect satisfaction. If any 
of our readers can recommend a more simple and better system that 
they have adopted we shall be glad to hear from them.] 
GARDEN CHEMISTRY. 
CLAY SOILS. 
The first step towards the improvement of wet clay is draining it, 
a, subject that will claim a chapter to itself. The next thing is to 
find something with which to mix with the staple, and which will 
serve the purpose that sand serves in loam. If light sandy soil can 
be got that is the best corrector of clay, for the two soils mixed will 
give a loam at once. But light soil is just what seldom can be had 
in a clay district. Perhaps the next best thing, especially when it 
can be had cheap, is the sweepings of streets minus the broken bottles, 
tin cans, bricks, and other rough material that will not decay. In 
those districts or gardens where plenty of brushwood can be had, or 
•even where coal is cheap, nothing will surpass the soil itself when 
charred. Road-scrapings, too, are often of a gritty nature, and are 
a valuable addition to any garden soil, especially from macadamised 
roads where whinstone is used. Coal ashes, too, are by no means to 
be despised, although in outlying districts some trouble may be expe¬ 
rienced in getting qualities that will make matters right all at once ; 
but if the ashes made on the place are screened to keep out cinders, 
■and made the most of, in the course of a very few years a great 
difference will be apparent. Lime, too, when properly applied does 
much to improve heavy clay, and ordinary manure plentifully applied 
will in course of time make the clay much more friable. 
In order to make the most of such materials as we have named 
some care will be necessary in the'r application. Digging them in 
will not do, though that is the usual way of incorporating such with 
the soil. Digging-in only r masses the materials in different lots ; it 
does not mix them. 
But a word is here necessary on the digging of clay soils. It has 
been the custom to recommend that such be turned up early in winter, 
or even in autumn, in order that the frost may pulverise them. This 
it does not do to any great extent, and it would be better if it did not 
do it at all, for the looseness so induced causes the retention of rain, 
which settles the mass into mud. When left undug, solid, no mud is 
formed, the frost acts on it all the same, and when turned up in big 
lumps in February or March the winds dry them, causing them to 
■shrink ; when moistened by rain they swell to an extent no frost 
could expand them, and the pieces can then easily'’ be knocked to 
powder, forming the best tilth possible in such soil either for sowing 
•seeds on or putting out plants. r J his our experience in the Carse of 
Falkirk teaches us is the proper way to treat clay soils, and we are 
confirmed in it by Mr. Weir of Iverse House, Stirlingshire, Mr. 
Thomson of Drumlanrig, Dumfriesshire, Mr. Doig of Rossie Priory, 
Perthshire, Mr. Taylor, Longleat, Somersetshire, and others all in 
widely different parts of the country 7 and under different climatical 
conditions, but all having, or having had, to deal with the heaviest 
clays, and all men of undoubted authority. 
It is when the surface is in this condition that such materials as 
we have named should be applied, for only then can they be perfectly 
incorporated with the soil. For this purpose the fork should be used, 
and care should be taken that digging is not allowed. The manure, 
ashes, burnt clay 7 , whatever is being mixed in, should be kept near the 
•surface. This is the more necessary if the amount of it should be 
small. One of the great evils of clay soils is that when dry they are 
too hard to work, when wet too puddly ; but if even an inch at the 
surface be made free much will be done ia the way of improvement 
if every fresh-dug-up surface is every new season similarly treated. 
In the case of light soil all matters must be imported. Best of 
these is heavy loam, and the best way to apply is to pulverise the 
clay in the way described above, and to fork it in. We have known 
clay to be dug into sandy soils, which after long years of cultivation 
was still turning up in lumps. As it is only when diffused through 
the soil that clay does any good, digging it in is next to useless—in 
fact is throwing money away. But hardly 7 anything improves light 
land so much as road-rakings. Marl, especially when clay r ey 7 , is a'so 
.applied with lasting benefit. As sandy soils hold least water and are 
soonest dried up, perhaps a plentiful supply of water and mulching, 
combined with liberal supplies of manure and a continual deepening of 
the soil are the best improvers, for carting clay and marl, and applying 
them in quantities sufficient to really improve the soil is, too often, out 
of the question because of the expense entailed. Keeping such soils 
pretty compact has a beneficial effect on them. It is their openness 
which causes them to dry so much ; hence throwing them up loosely 
with the fork in spring and summer, although beneficial in so far as 
it breaks all lumps and diffuses the manure, so allowing the roots free 
access to every part, and a continual supply of food, should alway s 
be followed by consolidation in the case of loose soils, otherwise 
forking is a great evil. 
Trenching is much advocated, but often trenching does much 
mischief. We have seen plots, and even whole gardens, rendered 
nearly sterile by injudicious trenching. No good can follow the 
turning-down of perhaps the few inches only of surface soil and the 
bringing-up of sterile clay or rusty sand ; and we cannot too earnestly 
urge on young men to always keep the best soil not only at the suiface 
but at the very surface. The start in life is nearly everything to aU 
sorts of vegetation, and a good start cannot be had in any but soil 
friable, sweet, open, and presenting food to newly pushed roots at 
every stage of their progress. When soil is turned up from below, 
and the good soil as well as manure turned down, no matter how 
heavy the dressing may be or how good the soil, failure more or less 
will result according to the length of time the roots are in reaching 
them. 
Still an effort ought to be made to deepen all soils that are less 
than 2 feet deep. Not long ago we had to deal with a soil in many 
places not over 4 inches thick, resting on an impenetrable pan. In a 
few years this pan was got rid of and the soil made 1^ foot deep in 
many instances ; but not by turning down the good soil. The method 
employed was to turn over the soil, exposing strips 2 feet wide of 
the subsoil. This was composed of half sandy half clayey stuff, full 
of stones and bound like asphalte with iron, altogether as unpromising- 
looking material out of which to make soil as one could look at. 
For a few inches in depth this subsoil was broken up with much 
difficulty with a pick, a good layer of manure spread over it, a spadeful 
of soil turned over, another layer of manure, and any loose soil over 
that. r lhe upper layer of manure was just under the soil and 
told at once on the crops ; the under was just over the broken subsoil 
and kept the crops going later on. It did more ; it furnished a home 
for worms, which in summer droughts and winter frosts found their 
way into the hitherto impenetrable subsoil. Now worms do two 
things. First, they live on decaying vegetation and convert it into 
the finest soil. On hard soil this is thrown to the surface, but in 
loose soil, such as the subsoil in question, they fill the open spaces 
with it. Secondly, when driven deep by frost or drought they 
swallow the soil, out of which they extract nourishment. They do 
more, as Darwin has proved. They grind the particles, liberating 
plant food, but, above all, they dissolve the red iron oxide. The 
decaying layer of manure also acts in the same way. Out of it acids 
are formed which, washed down by rain, also dissolve the iron. In 
consequence of this the drainage water from soils so treated shows 
iron, and by-and-by the impenetrable pan which hitherto prevented 
roots descending or killed them if they did descend, as well as cut 
off the supply of moisture from beneath, thus causing crops to be 
burnt up in dry weather, is got rid of. 
When a couple of years afterwards this broken subsoil was 
examined it was found very different. Poor enough still, it was now 
brown loam, with no trace of iron and no tendency to bind. It was 
now no longer inert, but soil. Again it was turned over. This 
time two shallow spades was to be had, and this was trenched over as 
before, the lowermost spading being put upmost, with a layer of 
manure under, and the subsoil further broken up. But the new soil 
at the top, mixed somewhat with the old soil, was not just the best 
even with a lay r er of manure directly under it. A dressing of 
thoroughly rotted dung was therefore spread over the surface and 
mixed in with the fork, and in this Potatoes were planted. The new 
soil and new manure always produced the finest early Potatoes, 
which, when lifted, left the soil by July in capital condition for 
putting out Strawberries, which, under such conditions, produced 
grand crops of the finest fruit the following season. 
In the improving of thin clay soils some similar method should be 
followed, only it will perhaps be found best to fork in sandy stuff, 
ashes, street sweepings, into such subsoils for two or three seasons, 
so as to get them as near the condition of loam as possible before 
turning them up. Indeed, by always forking the under soil only, some 
surface soil will be always taken down, and the digging-over of 
the surface soil will always bring up a little of the under, when the 
two will become similar. But by getting the soil free enough, then 
throwing it to the surface in order to enrich it and pulverise it 
thoroughly by cultivation and exposure, a third layer maybe attacked, 
and by-and-by a fourth. 
Hungry gravels and loose sands are by no means so easily 
improved as clays or loams—improved, that is, in depth without 
outside additions. Additions of all sorts of soils will in time help 
such, for if depth be an advantage anywhere it is in sandy soil. 
Liberal admixture of everything vegetable and the repeated forking 
over the subsoil in the manner described will in time deepen the worst 
sand. But in such humus—which constitutes the main difference 
between soil and subsoil—disappears rapidly. They “eat up” the 
