THE CULTIVATOR. 
Ill 
The rocky subsoils consist of granite, sandstone, limestone, chalk’ 
and other mountain rocks of a country. They are sometimes easi¬ 
ly penetrated by the water that falls upon the soil, and are then 
termed free or porous ; and sometimes they resist the percolation 
of water, when they are termed close or retentive. 
The earthy subsoil, may, in like manner, be divided into the 
close or retentive, and the free or porous. The retentive are those 
which, from containing clay, are tenacious and cohesive in their 
parts, and little pervious to fluids: the porous are those which, 
hating less of clay in their composition, are more readily permeable. 
Whether the subsoil be retentive or porous, the soil which rests 
upon it should be of good depth. If the soil be shallow on a reten¬ 
tive subsoil, it is affected too greatly by the alternations of dryness 
and moisture. And if, again, a shallow soil rest upon a porous sub¬ 
soil, the moisture of the soil is too easily acted upon and exhausted 
by heat. 
A subsoil, in so far as mere texture is concerned, should be nei¬ 
ther too retentive nor too porous. But although this intermedi¬ 
ate condition is, in most cases, the best, yet in a very cold and 
moist country, a free or porous subsoil is, for the most part, to be 
preferred to one which is close and retentive. The soil besides be¬ 
ing affected by the texture of the subsoil, is sometimes also afl'ect- 
ed by the nature of the mineral substances of which the subsoil is 
formed. 
If the subsoil be rocky, it is desirable that it be calcareous rather 
than silicious,—chalk or limestone, for example, rather than quartz. 
Sometimes the subsoil contains matter which is directly injurious to 
the growth of plants. This matter is generally found to be the ox¬ 
ides of metals in combination with acids. Subsoils of this kind 
are usually distinguished by deepness of color. 
Soils, then, it is seen, are affected in their properties not only by 
their own texture and composition, but by the texture and compo¬ 
sition of the subsoil; and they are divided into the stiff or clayey, 
and the light or free. 
The clayey soils have, as their distinguishing character, the adhe¬ 
siveness of their parts; and this property alone will enable even 
the inexperienced to discriminate them. A stiff clay when dried 
either by natural or artificial heat, becomes so hard as to resist a 
considerable mechanical pressure. On account of the tenacity of 
such soils, they are tilled with more difficulty than the freer soiis. 
They require, to fertilize them, a larger proportion of manures ; but 
they retain the effects of these manures for a longer time. They 
are better suited to the cultivation of plants, with fibrous than with 
tuberous or bulbous roots. Soils of this class, as of every other, 
possess many degrees of natural fertility. The poor clays form, for 
the most part, a very unprofitable soil, because, while their powers 
of production are inconsiderable, the expenses of tilling them are 
large. The clay soils of this character are generally of little depth, 
and rest upon a retentive subsoil. The natural herbage they pro¬ 
duce is coarse and little nutritious, and they are not well suited to 
the production of the cultivated grasses and other herbage plants. 
They are little fitted for the growth of turnips or other plants with 
bulbous and tuberous roots. Such soils have every where local 
names which sufficiently denote their qualities. They are termed, 
by a not improper figure cold soils; and sometimes they are classed 
under the general name moor, which term is often used to denote 
soils, whatever be their nature, of a low degree of fertility. 
Very different in their value and nature, are the richer clays.— 
These bear weighty crops of all the cultivated kinds of corn :* they 
do not excel the better soils of other classes so greatly in the pro¬ 
duction of oats, and still less in that of barley, in which lighter soils 
loams may surpass them ; but they are unequalledjjfor the production 
of wheat, and in many places derive their descriptive appellation 
from that circumstance, being tei med wheat soils. They are well 
suited for the growth of the bean,f a plant with a weighty stem, and 
requiring a stiff soil to support it. They will yield large returns of 
the cultivated grasses, and leguminous herbage plants,! ^though 
they are not so quickly covered with the natural herbage” plants 
of the soil, when laid down to perennial pasturage, as the lighter 
soils. ' 
Clays, like other soils, approach to their most perfect condition as 
* This term applies in Europe, to wheat, barley and the other small grains, 
and not to Indian corn, as in the United States. 
t The bean here alluded to is the horse bean, little cultivated here, and not 
the kidney bean which we grow. 
j As peas, beans, &c. 
they advance to that state which has been termed loam. The ef¬ 
fect of judicious tillage, and of the application of manures, is to im¬ 
prove the texture of such soils, as well as to enrich them. Thus, 
clays in the neighborhood of cities become dark in their colour, and 
less cohesive in their texture, from the mixture of animal and vege¬ 
table matter, and thence acquire the properties of the most valued 
soils of their class. 
Natural changes, however, yet more than art, have furnished the 
rich soils of clay. The best, for the most part, of the soils of clay, 
are those which are formed from the depositions of rivers or the sea. 
The finest natural soils of this and other countries are those which 
are thus formed. The deposition of rivers, indeed, are not always 
of a clayey nature. In mountainous districts, they generally form 
soils of the lighter kinds. Where the sea, however, is the agent or 
where both the rivers and the tides combine their action, the depo¬ 
sitions generally partake of the nature of clay. Such alluvial soils 
have every where local terms to mark their character and fertility. 
On the great rivers and estuaries in England, and in what are term¬ 
ed carses in Scotland, fine and extensive districts of this kind exist. 
The next class of soils is the light or free. These are readily dis¬ 
tinguished from the last by their smaller degree of tenacity. They 
are less suited for the production of wheat and beans than the clays, 
but they are better suited for the production of plants cultivated for 
their bulbs and tubers, as the turnip and the potato. 
This class of soils may be divided into two kinds, or sub-classes, 
differing from each other in certain characters, but agreeing in the 
common property of being less tenacious in their parts than the 
clays. 
The first of these sub-classes of the lighter soils has been termed 
the sandy. 
The sandy,soils are of all the degrees from barrenness to fertility. 
When wholly without cohesion in their parts, they are altogether 
barren, and are only rendered productive by the admixture of other 
substances. The cultivated sands part readily with their moisture 
on the application of heat. They do not become hard like the clays, 
and, making no considerable resistance to external pressure, they 
are tilled with little labor. 
The poorer sands are almost always marked by the scantiness of 
their natural herbage. This character they possess in common with 
the poorer gravels. Other soils, even the poorest, may be thickly 
covered with the plants peculiar to them ; but the poorer sands and 
gravels put forth their natural herbs with a sparmgness which de¬ 
notes the absence of vegetable nourishment. 
But sand, without losing its distinctive characters as a soil, may 
possess a greater cohesiveness in its particles, and be fertile by na¬ 
ture, or rendered so by art, and then the soils denominated sandy 
become of deserved estimation. Rich sands are early in maturing 
the cultivated plants, and thence they are familiarly termed kindly 
soils. They are fit for the production of every kind of herbage and 
grain. They yield to the richer clays in the power of producing 
wheat, but they surpass them in the production of rye and barley. 
They are well suited to the growth of the cultivated grasses ; and, 
when left in perennial pasture, they are quickly covered with the 
natural plants of the soil. But their distinguishing character is their 
peculiar adaptation to the raising of the plants cultivated for the bulbs 
and tubers of their roots.* 
The next division of the lighter soils, and allied in the character to 
the sandy, is the gravelly. 
Sands will frequently be found to be the production of flat coun¬ 
tries, gravels of the mountainous and rocky. The characteristic of 
the gravelly soils is the quantity of loose stones which they contain. 
These stones will be found to consist of those varieties of rock which 
the mountains of the country afford ; and the nature of these rocks 
wifi frequently indicate the character of the soil; thus soils, of which 
the stony matter is very silicious, are generally found to be barren, 
while those of which it is calcareous, are found to be fertile. 
Sands, upon examination, will be found to consist of small parti¬ 
cles of stony matter, and thus sands may be said to differ only from 
gravels in the more minute division of their parts. Yet, in this mi¬ 
nuteness of division, there is generally sufficient to distinguish the 
two kinds of soils. The stony matter of the sand forms its principal 
component part, while the larger stones in the gravel, which give to 
it its name and its character, seem only to be mixed with the other 
necessary parts of the soil. The stone of the one has undergone a 
* And to the culture oflndian corn. 
