OF EARTH. 11 



this is also eligible according to the purposes you would employ it for ; 

 some plants affecting hotter, others colder exposures ; some delight to 

 dwell on the hills, others in the valleys and closer seats ; and some again 

 are indifferent to either ; but generally speaking, most of them choose 

 the warm and more benign ; and the bottoms are universally fertile, be- 

 ing the recipients of what the showers bring down to them from the 

 hills and more elevated parts. 



Another infallible indication is the nature and fioridness of the plants 

 which the land naturally produces; as where thistles spontaneously thrive; 

 where the oak grows tall and spreading ; and as the plant is of kind, so to 

 prognosticate for what tillage, or other use, the ground is proper. Thyme, 

 strawberries, betony, and sorrel, direct to wood ; chamomile, to a mould 

 disposed for corn and hortulan furniture ; burnet, to pasture ; mallows, 

 to roots, and the like, as my lord Verulam and others observe. 



On the contrary, some grounds are so cold, as naturally to bring forth 

 nothing but gorse, broom, holly, yew, juniper, ivy, and box ; which 

 may happily direct us to the planting of pine, firs, the phillyreas, laurel, 

 Spanish broom, and other perennial verdures, in such places. 



Moss, rushes, wild tansey, sedge, flags, fern ^, yarrow, and where 

 plants appear withered or blasted, shrubby and curled, (which are the 

 effects of immoderate wet, heat and cold, interchangeably,) are natural 

 auguries of a cursed soil ; yet I have observed some ferny grounds proper 

 enough for coppice and forest-trees. Thus, as by the plant we may 

 conjecture of the mould, so by the mould we may guess at the plant ; 

 the more herbaceous and tender, springing from the gentle bed ; the 

 coarser and rougher plants, from the rude and churlish. And as some 

 earths appear to be totally barren, and some, though not altogether so 



s Where fern grows luxuriantly, we may pronounce the soil favourable to turnips, 

 corn, and trees. The other plants here mentioned are certain indications of a bad soil. 

 Virgil describes steril grounds, by enumerating the plants that naturally grow in such places. 

 There, 



■ piceae tantum, taxique nocentes 



Interdum, aut hederse pandunt vestigia nigrse. georg. ii. 



3 G 2 



