MANURES. 
35 
CHAP. II. j 
loose sands* are frequently improved in the 
South of France and Italy* by sowing them 
with seeds of the common white lupine* and 
then* when the plants have come up and 
grown about a foot high* ploughing or dig¬ 
ging them into the soil. The green succu¬ 
lent stems of the lupines* when thus buried 
in the soil, supply it with moisture during 
the process of their decay; and thus nourish¬ 
ment is afforded to the corn* which is imme¬ 
diately afterwards sown upon the soil for a 
crop. Clayey soils should have unfermented 
manure mixed with undecayed straw laid in 
the bottom of the furrows made in digging; 
that the process of fermentation* and the re¬ 
mains of the straw may operate in keeping 
the particles of the soil open* or* in other 
words* in preventing their too close adhesion. 
Lime (though when burnt it becomes vio¬ 
lently caustic* and will destroy and waste all 
the manure applied with it)* as carbonate of 
lime* or chalk (in which state only it can 
properly be called a soil)* retains the manure 
applied to it longer than any other soil. 
Rotten manure may thus be dug into chalk* 
with the certainty that it will be preserved 
d 2 
