THE FARM.

I. SOILS.

The Nature and Composition of the Soil, and consequently its greater or less aptitude to the growth and maturity of vegetable productions, depend chiefly on the proportion and mechanical structure of the various substances of which it consists. When the soil is favorable to the chemical action by which the elements are combined to form vegetable substances, and admits that quantity of air and moisture without which this chemical action cannot take place, in any given climate or temperature, vegetation goes on rapidly, and all the plants which are suited to the climate grow in the greatest perfection, and bear abundant fruits.

It is not, however, very frequently the case that a soil possesses all those qualities on which great fertility depends. So many circumstances must concur to make a soil highly fertile, that the great majority of soils can only be made to produce abundantly by being improved by art both in their texture and composition-hence the prac tice and science of agriculture, which is founded on experience, but to which every progress in science also affords great assistance, by the additional light which every new discovery throws on the true theory of vegetation.

There are various modes of distinguishing soils, without entering into a minute analysis of their component parts. The simplest and most natural is to compare their texture, the size and form of the visible particles of which they are composed, and to trace the probable source of their original formation from the minerals which are found around or below them, or the rocks from which they may have been slowly separated by the action of the elements.

A Good Soil is composed of one-third coarse sand, one-third very fine sand, and one-third impalpable matter, in which there is silica in the greatest quantity, alumina and lime in a smaller, and from four to ten per cent. of organic matter.

Analysis of Soils.-In ascertaining the value of a soil for agricultural purposes, two circumstances should be carefully noticed. The first is the permeability of the soil to water; and the second is its power of absorbing moisture from the atmosphere. To ascertain the first, it is only necessary to place an equal weight of different soils in glass tubes of equal diameter, pressing them so that they shall occupy equal spaces, but not filling the tubes. Then place them upright in cups, and pour equal quantities of water over each soil. Examine which has the surface first dry, and how much water runs through each in a given time.