SECT. IV. 05 A GARDEN* 53 



feel an extreme fenfation ; for as they are then warm, 

 through a lively fermentation in the earth, great cold 

 fo contracts their veflels, that they perform their proper 

 offices with difficulty, and become difeafed. 



Hard water is foftened by throwing in a little dung % 

 lime, marie i or earth, and rather that of a loamy nature, 

 or clay, which will greatly fit it for ufe. Someperfons 

 keep chalk in wells, citterns, &c. to foften the water ; 

 and others have kept hard water on bruifed oyfler-jhelh 

 a few days in a tub, with a view to watering flowers, 

 Sec. others have put a bag of barley in it, finding the 

 water that h^s been ufed in malting, is rendered very 

 foft, though ever fo hard when put on the grain. Frefti 

 bran foftens water much, ftirring it up now and then 

 for a day or two. At any rate, however, let hard 

 water {land expofed to the fun and air, as long as may 

 be ; a few hours will improve it, but a few days will 

 better qualify it for vegetation. 



Water is fometimes enriched with dungs and falts. 

 Some experiments of putting a fmall quantity of nitre 

 into water to keep flowers flourifhing in phials, and 

 rooted plants in pots, appear to prove beneficial. That 

 coarfer way of impregnating water with dungs may 

 be ufeful to pots of plants that are too full of roots, or 

 to any thing growing in a poor foil ; but the water 

 ffiould not be made too rank, or fufTered to touch the 

 leaves; it fliould ftand alfo in the fun two or three days, 

 and be ftirred up now and then. Sheep' s -dung for the 

 purpofe, is to be preferred, though others may do. Let 

 the rule be, to impregnate the water about an equivalent 

 of an ounce of fea-falt to a gallon : A ftronger ihixture 

 might do mifchief; yet a rich one poured plentifully 

 on old afparagus beds in autumn and fpring would do 

 much good. 



The management of a garden, as fomewhat 

 diftinct from the cultivation of it, is an object of confe- 

 quence; i.e. to keep it in fuch order, that it may not 

 i ail in thofe general impreffions oipleafure it is caoable 



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