MILLSTONE GRIT. 



MIXTURE OF SOILS. 



which are attached at both ends. To render 

 these mills effective for crushing oats, the 

 rollers should be left rough as they come from 

 the lathe, to draw in the, kernels, as the latter 

 are apt to start back at the moment of entering 

 between the rollers, if they are polished. A 

 grrtoved or fluted roller has not been found 

 adequate to the perfect bruising or cutting of 

 oats, and a mill that shall effect this object may 

 be considered a desideratum in agricultural 

 mechanics. 



MILLSTONE GRIT. A geological term 

 applied to a group of strata which occur be- 

 tween the mountain limestone and the superin- 

 cumbent coal formations ; it is a coarse-grained 

 quartzose sandstone. 



MINT (Mentha). The poets celebrate Minthe, 

 a daughter of Cocytus, as being transformed 

 into mint by Proserpine ill a fit of jealousy. 

 (Ovid. Metam. 10, v. 729.) This is an extensive 

 and well-known genus of useful herbs, with 

 the culture and propagation of which every 

 one is familiar. In England there are more 

 than a dozen native species, besides numerous 

 cultivated varieties. The roots are perennial, 

 creeping widely. All the herbage is more or 

 less hairy, but variable in that respect ; rarely 

 woolly or finely downy; full of pellucid dots, 

 lodging a copious essential oil, which is pun- 

 gently aromatic, cordial, and stimulant, and is 

 thence used in medicine as an excitant and 

 stomachic for promoting digestion. The fol- 

 lowing are the indigenous species. Horse-mint 

 (M. sylvestris), round-leaved mint (M. rotundi- 

 folia), spear or green mint (M. viridis), black 

 or peppermint (M. ptpmta),bergamotmint (M. 

 dtrata), hairy mint (M. hirsuta), fragrant sharp- 

 leaved mint (M. acutifolia), tall red mint (M. 

 rubra), bushy red mint (M. gentilis}, narrowed- 

 leaved mint (M. gradlis), corn-mint (M. arven- 

 sis), rugged field-mint (M. agrostis), and penny- 

 royal (Mi pulegium}. See CAT-MINT, HORSE- 

 MI XT, PEPPERMINT, PENNY-ROYAL, SPEAR- 

 MINT, &c. 



MISSELTOE (Viscum; from vescus, birdlime, 

 on account of the sticky nature of the berries). 

 The misseltoe is a well-known parasite, readi- 

 ly propagated by sticking the berries on thorn 

 or apple trees, after a little of the outer bark 

 has been cut off, and tying a shade or net over 

 them, to protect them from the birds. Sheep 

 eagerly devour this plant, which is frequently 

 cut off the trees for them during the severe 

 winters ; nay, it is even said to preserve them 

 from the rot. Its branches are much sought 

 after at Christmas to hang up in houses, along 

 with other evergreens. It was one of those 

 plants held sacred to the Druids. 



MIST. See FOG. 



MITE. See CHEESE-MITE. 



MIXEN. A compost heap. 



MIXTURE OF SOILS, in agriculture, is the 

 addition of one soil to another, to improve its 

 fertility. 



There is perhaps no agricultural improve- 

 ment more important in both its immediate and 

 permanent effects than the careful, judicious 

 mixture of soils, and there is no question more 

 likely to repay the cultivator for the care he 

 bestows upon it. 



This mode of improving the land was one 

 824 



which very early engaged the attention of the 

 farmer. Nature herself, in fact, pointed out to 

 him the means of producing the richest of 

 soils by earthy mixtures in very intelligible 

 language. The solid matters brought down 

 from the distant hills by the flood-waters, and 

 deposited in the valleys where the waters 

 rested, evidently formed, by the mixture of dif- 

 ferent strata, and by their union only, the rich 

 alluvial soils of the old and the new worlds ; 

 I for that the mere mechanical separation of the 

 ' earth into a fine state of division is not the sole 

 cause of the increased fertility, is apparent to 

 every farmer. 



It is useless, he well knows, to expect the 

 debris of the hills to produce fertilizing effects 

 on soil of a similar composition. It is the dis- 

 similarity of the earths which insures a maxi- 

 mum fertile mixture : thus, in the soil of the 

 rich marshes of the banks of the Thames are 

 found the clay of the London basin, the sands 

 of Middlesex, and the chalks of Oxfordshire and 

 Kent; and in a similar manner are formed all 

 rich alluvial lands. This good effect of earthy 

 deposits naturally pointed out to the Italian 

 farmers the use of earthy additions to the soil. 

 Columella expressly notices the use of sand, 

 gravel, marl, and chalk (book ii. c. 16, p. 93) ; 

 and the people of Megara, according to Theo- 

 phrastus, had made similar observations upon 

 the importance of mixing together different 

 strata of earth (lib. iii. c. 25) ; for every fifth 

 or sixth year they trenched the gravel to a 

 depth equal to that they imagined the rain had 

 penetrated. The early inhabitants of Britain 

 employed marl, as the people of Gaul did lime, 

 for spreading over their lands. And that this 

 was done to a very considerable extent, is shown 

 by several facts. Thus, marl-pits are men- 

 tioned as early as 1285, in the charter of the 

 forest, and again in the statute of Wales in the 

 12 Edward 1. And so early as the days of 

 Richard, Duke of Cornwall, the Cornish farm- 

 ers had a grant by which they were empowered 

 to take the calcareous sand of Padstow harbour, 

 and spread it over their clayey lands. The 

 successful mixture of the farmers' soils, there- 

 fore, is not a modern improvement; it has evi- 

 dently been practised with success in all cli- 

 mates, in different ages, and on every descrip- 

 tion of cultivatable land. 



I have witnessed, however, even in soils to 

 all appearance similar in composition, some 

 very extraordinary results from their mere 

 mixture. Thus, in the gravelly soils of Spring 

 Park, near Croydon, the ground is often exca- 

 vated to a depth of many feet through strata 

 of barren gravel and red sand, for the purpose 

 of obtaining the white or silver sand which 

 exists beneath them. When this fine sand is 

 removed, the gravel and red sand is thrown 

 back into the pit, the ground merely levelled, 

 and then either let to cottagers for gardens or 

 planted with forest trees ; in either case the 

 effect is remarkable : all kinds of either fir or 

 j deciduous trees will now vegetate with re- 



markable luxuriance; and in the cottage-garden 

 thus formed, several species of vegetables, 

 such as beans and potatoes, will produce very 

 excellent crops in the very soils in which they 

 would have perished previous to their mixture. 





