SOIL.
20.  THE  plants  and  trees  which  grow  in  a  garden,  prefer,  like
most  others,  the  best  soil  that  is  to  be  found  ;  and  the  best  is  good
fat  loam  at  the  top,  with  a  bottom  that  suffers  the  wet  gently  to
escape.  But  we  must  take  that  which  we  happen  to  have,  avoiding,
if  we  possibly  can,  a  stiff  clay  or  gravel,  not  only  as  a  top-soil,  but
as  a  bottom-soil  also,  unless  at  a  very  great  distance.  Oak-trees
love  clay,  and  the  finest  of  that  sort  of  timber  grows  on  such
land  ;  but  no  trees  that  grow  in  a  garden  love  clay,  and  they
are  still  less  fond  of  gravel,  which  always  burns  in  summer  time,
and  which  sucks  up  the  manure,  and  carries  it  away  out  of  the
reach  of  the  roots  of  the  plants.  Chalk,  if  it  be  too  near  to
the  top,  is  not  good  ;  but  it  is  better  than  clay  or  gravel ;  and  by
the  means  of  trenching,  of  which  I  shall  presently  speak,  chalky-
soil  may  make  a  very  good  garden ;  for  chalk  never  burns  in
summer,  and  is  never  wet  in  winter  ;  that  is  to  say,  it  never  causes
stagnant  water.  It  absorbs  it,  and  retains  it,  until  drawn  upwards
by  the  summer  sun.  And  hence  it  is  that  the  chalky  downs  are
fresh  and  green,  while  even  the  meadows  in  the  valleys  are  burned
up  so  as  to  be  perfectly  brown.  No  tree  rejects  chalk  ;  chalk
is  not  apt  to  produce  canker  in  trees  ;  and,  upon  the  whole,  it
is  not  a  bad  soil  even  for  a  garden,  while,  if  it  have  a  tolerable


12  SITUATION,  SOIL,  [CHAP.
