40 The Tra5iical Kitchen Gardiner. 



prevention of the mifchiefs that attend 

 all brackifh and poifonous waters in ge- 

 neral 5 but tiiofe ancient fages, whom 

 we muft mention with refped, affure 

 us, that a bag of barley put into any 

 reafonable quantity of water, tiio* bad, 

 will foften and fweeten it ; and I have 

 often been allured, that the water where- 

 in barley is fteep'd in order to the mak- 

 ing of malt, tho* never fo corrofive and 

 crude, is thereby foftned and made fit 

 for wafhing, or any other ufe ; and it 

 may therefore undoubtedly and without 

 danger, for that reafon, be recommend- 

 ed for the watering of all tender feed- 

 ling plants and herbs. Of whicli more 

 hereafter. 



The method That thctc is good and bad water in 

 of difcover- .\-^^ vclus of the carth, that is hurtful, 



tmgoodand . ^ . ^ , , 



bad water, if ^ot pouonous to mcu and plants, is 

 undeniably true 5 and the ancients, as 

 Vitruvius * relates, ufed, in the digging 

 of ail their wells and cifterns, to let a 

 lamp gently down into them, and if it 

 was extinguilh'd thereby, they took it 

 to be an infallible fign that the water 

 was bad. And other trials, in wafhing 



Lib. 8. cap, 9, 



and 



