>2 



ON THE MANAGEMENT 



I confess, to say that a good soil will admit of 

 being improved by a mixture with a bad one, but 

 yet so it is, since although you may conceive the 

 primogenial soil to be sufficiently good and proper 

 for the purpose c , it is, nevertheless, evinced by 

 experience, that it will admit of improvement, and 

 will be much benefited by having the various soils 

 above mentioned judiciously mixed and well worked 

 together. 



As the vegetable mould from decayed leaves, 

 which I just mentioned above, cannot always be 

 obtained, by reason that the leaves require to lie 

 two years before they become sufficiently putrid and 

 reduced ; it therefore may sometimes be necessary 

 to substitute some other ingredient in lieu of this 

 part of the compost ; wherefore it may not be in- 

 expedient to point out the proper succedanea. 



Rotten wood reduced to a fine mould, such as 

 is often found under faggot stacks ; the scraping 

 of the ground in old woods, where the trees grow 



• The spontaneous fruitfulness of the ground was a thing 

 peculiar to the primogenial soil, (by which I mean the original 

 mould at the creation and after the flood), for that was so 

 tempered as to be more luxuriant than it could ever be after- 

 wards ; and, therefore, as that rich and proper temperament 

 was spent, so by degrees it grew less fertile. " The fruits of 

 the earth were, at first, spontaneous, and the ground, without 

 being torn or tormented, satisfied the wants or desires of man. 

 When nature was fresh and full, all things flowed from her 

 more easily and more pure, like the first running of the grape, 

 or of the honey- comb ; but now she must be pressed and 

 squeezed, and her productions taste more of the earth and 

 bitterness." — Burnet's Theory of the Earth, vol. i. page 225. 



