1818.] Death of Plants. 257- 



growing to them : the carrots were likewise still alive, and perfect. 

 As to the grasses, and more especially the two everlasting peas, 

 they ran through the earth in every direction ; and I really believe 

 if put three feet under ground, instead of one and a half, they, 

 as well as the convolvulusses, docks, and many weeds of the 

 kind, would extend themselves through the whole, and arrive at 

 the surface. 



This, 1 think, is proof sufficient that weeds and grass will 

 renew themselves ; and that it is filling the ground with their 

 roots to return them to the earth after digging them up at so 

 great an expense of time and money ; and that the ground will 

 never be clean as long as this is clone. But if, on the contrary, 

 they were brought to a waste place and burned, and their ashes 

 collected, they would not only make excellent manure, but the 

 t arth, in a few years, would become perfectly clean from weeds, 

 and all this labour woidd be spared. The branches have now 

 been in the earth nearly three years ; the first winter the 

 walnut and plane died, but the oak and elm lived to the second : 

 they have lost their bark ; but with respect to the wood, they 

 are to appearance as far from rot as at first. It may, perhaps, 

 occur to some reflecting minds,- that something of this kind 

 passes before our eyes every year even in the air ; since almost 

 all the umbelliferous plants may be seen to lose their bark 

 early in the autumn, and stand up in the hedges most con- 

 spicuously like frail white wands till the next summer, when the 

 same root shoots again. I have often seen these wands, and 

 marked them with a string, when they have retained their situa- 

 tion not only for one year, but till the second winter has passed, 

 and they have at last given way to weakness rather than to 

 putridity. If, therefore, this wood could support itself in the 

 air for two years without showing any symptoms of decay, it 

 may well be supposed it would require six or seven years to 

 destroy it, if buried in the earth ; how then are the roots to be 

 destroyed by merely opening the earth in a falloAv ? * 



Animal matter is said to be decomposed in the ground when 

 lime is with it ; but 1 found that when a piece of meat was 

 placed in a trench, surrounded by lime, it remained six months 

 unaltered, except that it appeared to have surrounded itself with 

 a crust of matter, that prevented the egress, or regress, of any 

 juices whatever, since the flesh grew perfectly hard and dry, 

 and had not the whole time the least bad smell. From these 

 facts wc learn that we cannot depend on the decay of the animal 

 ■ lid vegetable matter in the earth ; and yet I have endeavoured 

 to show, in the most positive manner, in the Philosophical IVIaga- 



« ll i^ ii. cli - in mrntion the turning in green crops, as the same argument holds 

 jood for .ill iiiaUcri of this kind : not having vet pasted through the grwwjoj; nro- 

 trCM, tbej ore till more unfit. 



Vol. xi. v iv. i: 



