90 On the Agriculture o/Eftgland, Manures^ ^c. 



laid down, with the best artificial grass seeds ; for the 

 roots of those young plants are healthy, and vigorous, 

 and capable of pressing forward, in search of nutri- 

 ment, through a soil, which, being free and open, ad- 

 mits a ready passage for them in every direction, and 

 if those grounds are ploughed up, before they become 

 bound, or consolidated, and while the roots of the grass 

 still remain vigorous, and filled with sap, they possess 

 powers of exciting and promoting future vegetation, 

 far beyond what has been generally supposed ; for al- 

 though their effects would be trifling, were they ex- 

 tracted, heaped, and decomposed, previously to their 

 being applied to the crop, they are immensely power- 

 ful, when their fermentation and decomposition take 

 place in the soil ; for the soil is warmed, moistened, and 

 expanded, in due proportion to the quantity and qua- 

 lity of decaying vegetation, which it contains : this 

 subject is well understood in Great Britain, when ap- 

 plied to clover lays, which are there very judiciously 

 managed, but their old grass grounds are seldom 

 ploughed, until they become so consolidated, and in- 

 fested with destructive grubs and other insects, that 

 the labour and risk, necessarily attached to the first 

 crops, which are grown on those grounds, render them 

 very expensive, as well as precarious ; and it some- 

 times happens, that two seasons are wasted in cultivat- 

 ing them, before the firm texture of the soil, and the 

 enemies with which it w^as infested, are subdued. 

 It appears, therefore, that old grass grounds are inca- 

 pable of producing as luxuriant crops, cither before 

 or after they have been broken up, as might have been 

 procured from the same grounds, under a system of 



