OF EARTH. 7 



speak of the drift and sea-sand, which is of admirable virtue and use in 

 mixtures, and to be spread on some lands, because it has been described 

 so accurately abeady in a just discourse upon another occasion, by an ex- 

 perienced gentleman dwelling in the western parts, where this manure is 

 perfectly understood, and recommended to more general use. 



As of sands, so are there different sorts of clays, and of as different 

 colours, whereof there is a kind so obstinate and iU-natured, as almost 

 nothing will subdue ; and another so voracious and greedy, as nothing 

 will satiate, without exceeding industry, because it ungratefully devours 

 all that is applied to it, turning it into as arrant clay as itself. Some 

 clays are more pinguid than others ; some more slippery ; all of them te- 

 nacious of water on the surface, where it stagnates and chills the plant 

 withouf penetrating ; and in dry seasons, costive, and hardening with 

 the sun and wind ; most of them pernicious and untractable. 



The unctuous and fatter clay frequently lies upon the other, having 

 oftentimes a basis of chalk beneath it ; but neither is this worth any thing 

 till it be loosened and rendered more kind, so as to admit of the air and 

 heavenly influences : in a word, the blue, white, and red clays (if strong) 

 are all unkind ; the stony and looser sort is yet sometimes tolerable ; but 

 the light brick earth does very well with most fruit-trees. 



I had almost forgotten marsh-earth, which, though of all other seem- 

 ingly the most churlish, a little after it is first dug and dried, (when it soon 

 grows hard and chaps,) may, with labour and convenient exposure, be 

 brought to an excellent temper ; for being the product of rich slime, 

 and the sediment of land- waters and inundations, which are usually fat, 

 as also the rotting of sedge, yea, and frequently of prostrated trees, rotted, 

 and now converted into mould, it becomes a very profitable land ; but 

 whether I may reckon this among the natural earths, I do not contend. 



Of loams and brick-earths we have several sorts, some approaching 

 to clay, others nearer marl ; differing also in colour ; and if it be not too 

 rude mingled in just proportion with other mould, an excellent ingre- 

 dient in all sorts of earth, and so welcome to the husbandman, and espe<s 

 cially the gardener, as nothing does well without a little dash of it, 



