NEW HUSBANDRY EXEMPLIFIED. II 



nourifhment ? Many farmers and others think, 

 that the earth is recruited of the vegetable 

 nourishment by manures: but what recruits 

 the land that is not manured, and yet conti- 

 nues to bear annual crops of wheat ; and not 

 only wheat, but all other horfe-hoed crops j 

 as of barley, or other corn 5 and that may be 

 had every year fucceffively, without manure ? 

 Annual crops of peafe, beans, tares, and 

 other plants may be continued without manure; 

 and fo large plants, as vines are thus cultivated, 

 and annually produce large quantities of grapes, 

 without any manure at all: the low vineyards 

 in France and Italy, which produce the beft 

 wines, are not manured, nor have any other 

 afTiftance but the hoeings given by the 

 plough. This is therefore the great point to 

 be confidered, the difcovery of which will 

 explain the true fyftem of vegetation, and the 

 principal foundation of the New Hu{bandry. 



Some have fuppofed, that roots feed upon 

 the fine particles of earth : but this cannot be 

 admitted ; for by much the greater part of 

 land confifts of flones, gravel, and fand ; 

 which are all too grofs and folid to nourim 

 plants, or to enter the extremely minute pores 

 of roots : or, if plants could be nourimed by 

 fine earth, the proportion of it is fo fmall, in 

 moft forts of land, that if a quantity of it, 

 fufficient to nourim the plants, was carried off 

 by every crop of corn and weeds, they would 

 carry off fuch large quantities, and carrots, 

 parfnips, cabbages, potatoes, and other large 



plants, 



