CULTIVATION IN GENERAL. 



59 



The best protector against frequent drought is frequent digging ; 

 or, in the fields, ploughing, and always deep. Hence will arise a 

 fermentation and deics. The ground will have moisture in it, in 

 spite of all drought, which the hard, unmoved ground, will not. 

 But always dig or plough in dry weather, and the drier the w^ea- 

 ther, the deeper you ought to go, and the finer you ought to break 

 the earth. When plants are covered by lights, or are in a house, 

 or are covered with cloths in the night time, they may need water- 

 ing, and in such cases must have it given them by hand. 



116. I shall conclude this Chapter with observing on what I 

 deem a vulgar error, and an error too which sometimes produces in- 

 convenience. It is believed and stated that the ground grows tired, 

 in time, of the same sort of plant ; and that, if it be, year after 

 year, cropped M'ith the same sort of plant, the produce will be 

 small, and the quality inferior to what it was at first. Mr. Tull 

 has most satisfactorily proved, both by fact and argument, that this 

 is not true. And I will add this fact, that Mr. Missing, a barris- 

 ter, living in the pansh of Titchfield, in Hampshire, and who was 

 a most excellent and kind neighbour of mine, has a border under a 

 south wall, on which he, and his father before him, have grown 

 early peas, every year, for more, noio, than ffty years ; and if, at 

 any time, they had been finer than they were every one year of the 

 four or five years that I saw them, they must have been something 

 very extraordinary ; for, in those years, they were as fine, and as 

 full bearing, as any that I ever saw in England. 



117. Before I entirely quitted the subject of Cultivation, there 

 would be a few remarks to be made upon the means of pre- 

 venting the depredations of vermin, some of which make their 

 attacks on the seed, others on the roots, others on the stem, others 

 on the leaves and blossoms, and others on the fruit ; but, as I shall 

 have to be very particular on this subject in speaking of fruits, I 

 defer it till I come to the Chapter on Fruits. 



118. Having now treated of the Situation, Soil, Fencing, and 

 Laying out of Gardens ; on the making and managing of Hot-beds 

 and Green-houses ; and having given some directions as to Pro- 

 pagation and Cultivation in general, I next proceed to give Alpha- 

 betical Lists of the several sorts of plants, and to speak of the 

 proper treatment for each, under the three heads. Vegetables and 

 Herbs; Fruits; and Flowers. 



