SOUNDNESS. 
July till September. It loves a soil of sandy 
peat, and is propagated from seed. 
SORREL (Woop). See Woop SorRet. 
SOUNDNESS. Freedom from injury or de- 
fect,—or, in the case of a horse, the absence of 
everything which impairs now, or may probably 
impair hereafter, his natural usefulness. The 
constituents of soundness in horses are ill de- 
fined, both in the phraseology of common life 
and in that of the law; and they afford occasion 
for a perfect wilderness of disputes in the horse- 
market, and render it quite unsafe for an inex- 
perienced person to purchase a horse without the 
aid of a professional man, or without a full writ- 
ten warranty of soundness from the seller. Youatt 
pronounces unsoundness to have “ reference only 
to disease, or to that alteration of structure 
which is connected with or will produce disease, 
and lessen the usefulness of the animal ;” and he 
enumerates, as “the usually supposed appear- 
ances or causes of it,’ broken knees, capped 
hocks, contraction, corns, cough, roaring, wheez- 
- ing, whistling, high-blowing and grunting, crib- 
biting, curb, cutting, enlarged glands, enlarged 
hock, inflammatoriness of the eyes, lameness, 
neurotomized leg, ossification of the lateral car- 
tilages, pumiced foot, quidding, quittor, ring- 
bone, sandcrack, spavin, bog-spavin, splint, string- 
halt, thickening of the back sinews, thoroughpin, 
thrush, and windgalls. See the article War- 
RANTY. 
SOUR GOURD. See Apansonta. 
SOUR GUM. See Nyssa. 
SOURCIC ACID. See Apocrznie Acrp. 
SOUR LAND. Land which contains free hu- 
mic acid, and requires an application of cal- 
careous manure for the promotion of its fertility. 
See the articles Sorm and Lime. 
SOUTHERNWOOD. Several species of hardy 
ornamental plants, of the wormwood genus.— 
The field species, Artemisia campestris, grows 
wild in the sandy fields of some parts of England, 
but is rare. It is a perennial-rooted herb, 
and possesses little resemblance to the ordinary 
southernwoods of gardens, and has no aromatic 
or bitter flavour. Its stems are straight, wand- 
like, leafy, smooth, often reddish, and commonly 
from 12 to 24 inches long, and at first are pros- 
trate, but afterwards become more or less up- 
right as the flowers appear ; its leaves are irre- 
gularly and doubly pinnatifid, and have blunt 
and in many instances linear leaflets; and its 
flowers are ovate, small, and drooping, and have 
a yellow colour with a purplish calyx, and form 
numerous slender leafy clusters at the ends of 
the stems and the branches, and bloom in August. 
A variety called the alpine, A. c. alpina, was intro- 
duced about 30 years ago from Switzerland.—The 
most common southernwood of gardens, Artemisia 
abrotanum, is a native of the south of Europe, 
and was introduced to Britain about the middle 
of the 16th century, and has long been one of 
the most favourite ornamental plants of cottage 
SOWING. 
flower-plots, and is everywhere known and liked 
for the agreeable aromatic odour of its herbage. 
It is a hardy deciduous shrub, of commonly about 
4 feet in height. Its stems are simple ; its leaves 
are bipinnatifid and smoothish ; and its flowers 
have a herbaceous colour, and bloom from August 
till October. It thrives in any common gar- 
den soil, and is easily propagated from cuttings. 
—The other garden southernwoods have a gene- 
ral resemblance to the abrotanum ; yet, in some 
instances, are quite as like the mugworts and 
the true wormwoods; and they greatly vary in 
odour, in hoariness, in foliage, and in other cha- 
racters. See the articles Mucwort and Worm- 
WOOD. 
SOW. See Hoa. 
SOWBREAD. See Cyciamen. 
SOWENS. See Oar. 
SOWERBAIA. An ornamental, greenhouse, 
pink-flowered, evergreen, herbaceous plant, of 
the asphodel family. It is a native of Australia, 
and was introduced about 56 years ago to Bri- 
tain. It has commonly a height of about a foot; 
and blooms from May till July. It constitutes a 
genus of itself ; and is specifically called juncea, 
or “ the rush-leaved.” 
SOWING. The depositing of seed in the soil. 
The several methods of it are comprised in broad- 
casting, drilling, and dibbling, and are described 
in the articles Broapcast-Sowine, Driti-Hvs- 
BANDRY, and Dispiine. The comparative advan- 
tages of the broadcasting and the drilling me- 
thods are also noticed in the article Dritu-Hus- 
BANDRY. Points preliminary to sowing, and 
having reference to the seed, are discussed in the 
article SEED; points preliminary to sowing, and 
having reference to the state of the soil, are dis- 
cussed in the article PhoveHine; some points 
which have reference to the economy of sowing 
are noticed in the article AcrIcuULTURAL SEEDS ; 
points which have reference to the season and 
meteorological circumstances of sowing are no- 
ticed in the articles on all the principal field and 
garden crops; subjects connected with the im- 
plements specially employed in sowing are no- 
ticed in the articles Sowine Macuinus and Im- 
PLEMENTS; and points which have reference to 
the immediate chemical and physiological results 
of sowing are discussed in the article GeERMINA- 
TION. 
The comparative advantageousness of thick 
and of thin sowing is complicated with the com- 
parative advantageousness of the broadcasting 
and the drilling methods, with the specialities or 
modifications in the practice of each, with the 
nature, condition, and tilth of the soil, with the 
season, weather, and other circumstances of sow- 
ing, and with the species and varieties of the 
crops sown; so that both arguments from theory 
and appeals to experiment may very readily be 
conducted with such incautiousness or such in- 
comprehensiveness as to bring out apparently 
triumphant conclusions on either side of the 
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