For early crops a light, sandy loam is best. A sandy loam is a loose, sandy soil made productive by good tillage, by mixing in humus and plant food or fertilizer. But when you haven’t the best, it is for you to counterfeit it as nearly as possible. The advantages of sandy loam are that it is early, easy to work, responds quickly to fertilizers and is readily kept in good tilth. “Tilth” is really the planting condition of the soil, and good tilth means the best possible conditions for planting seeds; where the plow and the harrow have done their work; where the sun has warmed and the rain moistened; where the fertilizer has sweetened and quickened; where stones and weeds are unknown, so that the new life finds the best conditions for sprouting and developing. You will understand why such soil is not often in the market. It is Nature’s materials plus man’s intelligent labor; and he who has it, is usually found working it to his own profit. Some soils are easily put into condition: others require much time and labor, but all always repay. It is well, however, to avoid a hard, cold, clayey soil if possible; it takes so long to warm up, that the seeds make little progress. Of course, steady persistent effort will greatly improve even this soil, and if that is the sort you have, you must do your best with it, but the average gardener cannot afford to wait. Compared with agriculture, which has been known in some form ever since there have been any records, tillage is very new. Like many another important thing, it was discovered quite accidentally by an English farmer, named Jethro Tull. He found that by stirring up the soil about his plants, he got better returns; and gave his discovery to the world. But he could not explain why it was so; he merely knew the fact itself. Science has since discovered that it is due to the action of the air in helping to break up the many compounds found in the earth containing plant food. It was a simple thing, yet it has really revolutionized gardening. Before tillage was known the returns from the sort of cultivation in use were very scanty, and this book had never been written had Tull’s discovery never been made. So you may be able to do the world a great favor if you cultivate intelligently, not fearing to experiment or to make known the results of your experiments. It may be reserved for you, in your little garden patch, to discover some new truth that will prove a blessing to the whole world, for no science today offers so wide a field for discovery as the science of Agriculture, nor so sure a return for labor expended.