82 On the Absurdity of burying Weeds, t&'c. 
since the first is always attended with a sweetish taste and clammy 
feel; the vinous has generally a sour acid smell; and the last 
will be known by its unpleasant effluvia. All these processes I 
never saw take less than two or three years. How then can they 
be serviceable to a crop of wheat that is only in the earth a few 
months ? 
It always appeared to me that there was a strange confusion 
by botanists and gardeners in comparing fresh vegetables, or 
plants but just dead, with dung, as if they both passed through 
the same process when replaced in the earth. Dung_ has 
already been exposed to a very high temperature, to the effects 
of the gastric juice in the stomach of the animal; and therefore 
enters the earth after it has undergone each separate fermen- 
tation. No wonder it is of such general use, since it is capable 
of being directly applied to the service of supporting the plants. 
But how different is the situation of vegetables just cut or drawn 
up by the roots, and then replaced in the earth! They are not even 
dead. After keeping one trough closed for near three years, in 
which I had placed boughs of trees and herbaceous vegetables ; 
and another, in which were weeds and indigenous plants ; most of 
the latter grew wp again, and many made their way through the 
top of the trough,—but i in the first the bark of the boughs was 
alone destroyed: no other part was touched, merely dirtied, 
What is most curious, several of the shoots had formed fresh 
buds in the earth, but perfectly without scales; which accords 
with the early decay of the bark. 
Another custom almost equally fatal to the farming system, 
is planting green crops, Jetting them grow for a time, then 
ploughing them in as manure for the crop of wheat the following 
season. When the corn has been reaped, perhaps, and two 
green crops taken after them, I have secured the one turned in 
to make manure, and found that the leaves were often eaten 
by vermin, but no other part in the least decayed; it had 
drawn around snails and worms,—but that I suppose was not the 
advantage to be reaped from the insertion of the plants. Jn the 
savannas of America, or the woods in the back settlements, I 
doubt not that the trees dropping where they grew, and having 
a century or two to assist in their decay, may at last form that 
black mould which may be of service to plants. But what a 
mixture each season must it make with atmospheric juices, with 
rains and dews, ere this can be effected! How many adventitious 
and accessary circumstances must this length of time produce, be- 
fore it can complete the decomposition and its reformation! The 
fat mould of New Holland is almost too rich for the common 
plants of England and Scotland, and for most wheats ; nay, in this 
country, in places where cultivation is yet little practised, prov 
much 
