THE CULTURE OF PLANTS 



of streets and high ways, together with the mud and 

 scouring of pondes and ditches. If first laid on heaps 

 in the open air to rot and sweeten, and if you mix 

 it with strata of lyme, that adds much to its good- 

 ness and fertility. 



Forest-trees require not so much manure as fruit- 

 trees ; but well mixed and fallowed soil. 



Kitchen-herbes and roots require very fat, light, 

 warme, and well-cultured ground. 



Flowers and fine plants cannot endure soil too 

 rank with manure, neither can they prosper if it 

 be poor ; but fresh, clean earth, with rotten neats- 

 manure, well beaten and mixed together, and a 

 little rotten willow-earth a little below the roots : 

 then comes in that delicate soil, the turf of the pas- 

 ture, mix'd with a little lyme, cow's and sheeps-man- 

 ure, well rotted and mingled as before. See more 

 particularly what soil each kind or sort of plant de- 

 lights in, or loves best, in their respective chapters 

 and sections following. 



As for making the hot-bed for raising early and 

 tender plants, dig a pit four foot deep, because in 

 the spring the ground is often wet in this country, 

 and of length and breadth as you have occasion, in 

 a convenient and warm place, lying well to the sun 



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