If I had such soil I would rake up all the leaves I could
find, employ them as bedding for my cow and pigs (if I kept any),
and spread the compost-heap resulting on the sandy garden. The
soil is already too light and warm, and it should be our aim to
apply fertilizers tending to counteract this defect. A nervous,
excitable person should let stimulants alone, and take good,
solid, blood-making food. This illustration suggests the proper
course to be taken. Many a time I have seen action the reverse of
this resulting disastrously. For instance, a man carts on his
light thin soil hot fermenting manure from the horse-stable, and
plows it under. Seeds are planted. In the moist, cool, early
spring they make a great start, feeling the impulse of the
powerful stimulant. There is a hasty and unhealthful growth; but
long before maturity the days grow long and hot, drought comes,
and the garden dries up. Therefore every effort should be made to
supply cool manures with staying qualities, such as are furnished
by decayed vegetable matter composted with the cleanings of the
cow-stable. We thus learn the value of fallen leaves, muck from
the swamp, etc.; and they also bring with them but few seeds of
noxious vegetation.
On the other hand, stolid, phlegmatic clay requires the stimulus
of manure from the horse-stable.
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