s, are
the brown or hazel-colored. Plowed in wet weather, they do not make
mortar, and in dry weather they will not break in clods. Dark-mixed and
russet moulds are considered the next best. The worst are the dark-gray
or ash-colored. The deep-black alluvial soils of the Western prairies
are an exception to all other soils, possessing, under proper treatment,
great powers of production. Soils do not, to any considerable extent,
afford food for plants. A willow-tree has been known to gain one hundred
and fifty pounds' weight, without exhausting more than two or three
ounces of the soil, and even that might have been wasted in drying and
weighing.

In our article on manures, we have shown that it is the texture of
soils, and their power to control moisture and heat, that renders them
productive: hence, no soil can be poor that is stirred deep and kept in
a friable condition, without being too open and porous; and no soil can
be good that is hard and not retentive of moisture, without having water
stand upon it. Hence, the great secret of successful farming, is, such a
mixture of the soils, and of fertilizers with the soil, as shall keep it
friable and moist, and such thorough drainage as will prevent water from
standing so as to become stagnant, and to unduly chill the roots of
growing plants. Nature has provided, near at hand, all that is essential
to productiveness; all that is necessary is to properly mix them. We do
not believe that there is an acre of land now under cultivation in the
United States, in a latitude where corn will grow, on which we can not
raise a hundred bushels of shelled Indian corn, without applying
anything but what may be raised out of that soil, and procured in the
shape of manure by animals in consuming that product. The poorest farm
in America may be brought up to a state of great fertility, without
applying one dollar's worth of any foreign substance. Plow _deep_, turn
under all the green substances possible, and feed out the products on
the farm and apply the manure, and mix opposite soils, that may be found
in different localities. Three years will secure great productiveness,
and the same course will increase its value, from year to year, without
cost. Three things only are essential to convert poor land into the
best; deep and thorough stirring and pulverization, suitable draining,
and thorough mixture of soils of different qualities, and the
incorporation of such animal and vegetable sub