OFEARTHS. 29 



lovely forms, from the firft germinating of the feed, however 

 minute and invifible to our eyes, are the natural limbecks, 

 wherein the terrene falts, water, air, rain, and dew, are di- 

 gefted in feveral varieties. 



Many families of plants, both herbaceous and arborefcent, 

 are vigorous and healthy in the chinks and crevices, and fum- 

 mits of rocks and precipices, with little vifible earth to fuftain 

 them ; and many of the marine tribes on teftaceous bodies, both 

 fed with the nutriment they find in fuch fituations. Their feeds, 

 roots, ilems and leaves, are the proper {trainers to generate their 

 fluids, and to concrete them into their feveral falts, to which the 

 external comprefTmg air in the feveral changes of fummer, au- 

 tumn and winter, are auxiliar till they come to maturity. The 

 native fluid and fap in trees hardens into timber, and its annual 

 revolutions are prettily difplayed in circles. Its original prin- 

 ciples are earth, water, and air, fermented into peculiar falts 

 by more curious ftrainers, and by more fubtil menftruums than 

 art hath hitherto difcovered. 



Hufbandry and planting have of late years rofe to a confiderable 

 degree of perfection in fome parts with us. Our vale-earths are 

 fo naturally rich, that by a moderate labour they anfvver our 

 moil fanguine expectations. I cannot but lament the fteril afpe<5t 

 of many thoufand acres in the weft, and north-weft, and of fome 

 tracts alfo in the midland and maritime parts, all capable, by divi- 

 vifion and inclofure, of the ornaments of tillage or planting. 

 The bringing them thus under cultivation, inftead of being op- 

 preflive to the poor, as alleged by the inconfiderate, would 

 raife them from indigence and poverty, to competent and eafy 

 circumftances. The very planting of large portions of heaths 

 and hills, and the making roads of plcafure or carriage to them, 



would 



