OF EARTH. 



23 



soils may be dissembled, and the air and water attempered, (at least for 

 some curiosities which may give light to more useful things,) I do not con- 

 clude ; but I should expect very rare and considerable things from an at- 

 tentive and diligent endeavour. To this end, the raising of artificial 

 dews and mists, impregnated with several qualities for the more natural 

 refreshment of exotic plants, were, it may be, no hard matter to effect, 

 no more than were the modification of the air abroad, as well as in our 

 more confined reserves, where we set them in for hyemation, and during 

 the most rigorous colds. As for mixtures of earth ; plants we know are 

 nourished by things of like affinity with the constitution of the soil 

 which produces them, and therefore it is of singular importance to be 

 well read in the alphabet of earths and composts ; for, as we have said, 

 plants affect the marsh, bog, mountain, valley, sand, gravel, fat and lean 

 mould, according to their tempers ; and for want of skill in this, the 

 same plant not only languishes and starves, but some we find to grow so 

 luxuriant as to change their very shapes, colours, leaves, roots, and other 

 parts, and to grow almost out of knowledge of the most skilful phyto- 

 logist ; not here to speak of what alterations do accrue from transplanting 

 and irrigations alone. I mention this to incite the curious to essay artifi- 

 cial compositions in defect of natural soil ; to make new confections of 

 earths and moulds for the entertaining of the most generous and pro- 

 fitable plants, as well as the most curious, especially if, as 1 hinted, we 

 could skill to modify also the air about them, and make the remedy as 

 well regional as topical ; and why not for other fruits (strangers yet 

 amongst us) as for oranges, lemons, pomegranates, figs, and other pre- 

 cious trees, which of late are become almost endenizoned amongst us, and 

 grow every generation more reconcilable to our climate? For, accord- 

 ing to Theophrastus, it is not the excessive fatness and richness of the 

 soil which invites these exotics and varieties to stay with us, or indeed 

 any other plants to prosper, but something which is connatural and suit- 

 able to the species. 



Here we might enlarge upon the several inquiries formerly suggested ; 

 as, how far principles might be multiplied and differenced by alteration 

 and condensation ? Whether earth, stripped of all heterogeneity and un- 

 uniform particles, retains only weight and an insipid siccity ? And whe-» 

 ther it produces or affords any thing more than embracement to the first 

 rudiments of plants, protection to the roots, and stability to the stem ; - 



