PRACTICAL PAPERS—SANDY LAND. 
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ble matter, about equal to the natural growth, would keep 
this soil up, and it would continue to produce good and sure 
crops. From these lands farmers must at first raise their 
grains, potatoes and other crops, and on these spread the ma¬ 
nures from the barn yard, until other lands may be enriched. 
A careful study of these rich swales will indicate what all the 
sandy lands need to make them productive—a little clay to 
compact the sand, a thick coating of vegetable matter to pro¬ 
duce humus, and a yearly addition of manure. These would 
keep the soil in heart, and with a little salt and lime would 
greatly increase its productiveness. 
The first great want is clay, or its equivalent; a want that in 
many places cannot be supplied except at too great expense. 
In places where the clayey material is found near at hand, in 
banks, or in a stream carrying clay in suspension, and by which 
it may be carried and spread over the surface by irrigation, a 
fine soil may soon be made in the sandy lands. Salt, lime and 
wood ashes will do much to supply the want of clay, as these 
materials dissolve the sand, and fit it for the food of plants. 
Salt and ashes, and plenty of vegetable manure should never 
be omitted in the culture of sandy lands. 
Second. —The low, wet swamps, often submerged in water, 
beds of ancient lakes, sloughs and fens. These demand care¬ 
ful attention. In no portion of the state is there such plateaus, 
so much surface lying at a water level, and on which the water 
stands without natural drainage, as in these sandy lands. Some 
of these swamps are peat bogs, but more frequently they are 
covered only a few inches deep with a semi-peat, composed of 
the decaying vegetation that has grown there. Generally they 
are traversed by or connected with a running stream, which 
renders it difficult, if not impossible to drain sufficiently to 
produce corn and other grains, or to adapt them for pasture 
lands, though they can be made to yield some of the wet 
meadow grasses. This difficulty of perfect drainage should 
not be obviated ; but on the contrary, advantage ought to be 
taken of it, and the land if not naturally stocked, be planted 
