1867 Cambr. Chron. & University Jrnl. 2 Feb. 7/6 I was topsoiling and the boy was shoveling up after me.

1873 Dubuque (Iowa) Daily Times 24 May Workmen are top-soiling Washington Park.

2013 Whitsunday (Queensland) Times (Nexis) 5 Dec. 46 The local netball, softball, Aussie rules, rugby union, touch football and soccer clubs helped raise the $13,000 which was spent on levelling and topsoiling the bottom field.

1733 Pract. Husbandman & Planter I. ii. 138 Nor will Lucern do well long on barren, dry, sandy-bottomed Land, let the Top be ever so good; for though it will grow pretty well for a Year or two, whilst it grows on the top Soil, yet when the Roots begin to get downwards, and not finding any strong hearty Land, inclinable somewhat to Moisture, it will soon go off again.

1785 W. Marshall Planting & Ornamental Gardening 502 Where the top-soil, or culturable stratum, is of an unproductive nature, whilst a bed of clay, loam, or other good soil lies under it, planting may sometimes be made greatly advantageous.

1855 Country Gentleman (Albany, N.Y.) 13 Sept. 171/3 At this point, the men knocked off the earth, letting it fall back into the hole, the yellow subsoil at the bottom and the darker topsoil above it.

1891 Indian Forester 17 68 In Japan the South-West monsoon gives heavy rain to all the numerous islands, and the quantity of good top-soil washed down into the streams and thence into the sea is enormous.

1935 Jrnl. Royal Soc. Antiquaries Irel. 5 142 Probably no more than a foot or so of weathered topsoil would normally have covered the till in such a position, so that a depth of 2-3 feet of soil implies artificial increase.

1981 Tree Planters' Notes (U.S. Dept. Agric. Forest Serv.) Fall 6/1 The seedbed was a..woodframed box filled with a commercial topsoil mix.

2007 Reading (Pa.) Eagle 14 May C1/2 Real topsoil, which takes centuries, even millennia, to develop, is a limited resource and is not what you necessarily get when you purchase ‘topsoil’.