IMrROVINS POOR SOIiS. 



have been formed by the overflowing of particular titles, 

 when the flumber was not so well restrained within its 

 limits as at present, arc capable of being employed, to 

 improve the soil. It is well known, that where the water 

 first begins to deposit, there the best soil is produced; and, 

 as these banks have been formed by repeated depositions 

 of this kind, they consist, several feet deep, of valuable 

 tarth, which may be led away, and employed, as a manure. 



APPENDIX. 



IN an-swer to those gentlemen in this Society, Mr. Presi. 

 dent, who have said, there is no land in Holderness bad 

 enough to grow thistles upon, I ask, is there no land that 

 riequires occasional fallowing ? If this be allowed, then 

 the question will be, whether the cultivation of thistles 

 be, or be not, more advantageous to the land, or pro- 

 ductive to the farmer, than letting it lie fallow. Now it 

 having been stated by such authority as Dr. Withering^ 

 that* thistles grow and flourish upon clays, where no 

 ©ther plant caa exist without manure, and that, where they 

 have grown, other plants may afterwards be propagated, 

 will not a crop of thistles be found highly advantageous 

 to . the farmer ? + For if they exist upon land, and draw 



none 



: •'. * Thistles, as the most useful, are armed and guarded bj 

 laature herself. Suppose there was a heap of clay, on which, for 

 Uiany years no plant had ever sprung up, let the seeds of the 

 thistles blow there, and grow, the thistles, by their leaves, attract 

 the moisture out of the air, send it into the clay by means of their 

 roots, will thrive themselves, and afford a shade. Let now other 

 plants come, and they will soon cover the ground." Biberg's 

 (Economy of Nature, translated by Stillingfleet. See also 

 Withering's Botanical Arrangement. 



' f " It is probable," says Parkinson, " that the sow-thistlCj, 

 were it properly cultivated, would become one of the most fatten- 

 ing plants the earth produces. Sheep, when in clovers^ &c. wilj 

 teed upon it so greedily, as to eat the very roots ; pigs likewise 

 l^refer it to almost any other green food ; rabbits will breed more 

 speedily when fed with sow thistles, than. with any other food I 



know 



