38 



A DISCOURSE 



many of tliese being freshly made, are not sensibly hot, but mordacious 

 and burning, they are with caution to be used. That every kind of 

 earth (as well as the dung of beasts, &c.) has its peculiar ferment, and 

 operates accordingly, either by attracting something to it, or embasing 

 what approaches it, svifficient has been said ; together with directions how 

 to mingle and attemper it, as best may qualify it for culture. That we 

 may do the like with the several sorts of soil, let us consider what their 

 natures are, what their correctives, and how to apply them. 



Horse-dung, the least pinguid and fat of any, taken as it falls, being 

 the most fieiy, excites to sudden fermentation above any ; wherefore, as 

 we said, it is then fit only for the hot-bed, and when that fervour is past, 

 may be spread on fields where we would have a rank grass to spring ; but 

 is at no hand to be admitted into the garden, or where you desire good 

 roots should grow, unless the ground be very stiff, cold, or wet, and 

 then too it had need be well rotted, lest, instead of curing it, it leave 

 couch-grass and pernicious weeds, worse than the disease. The seeds of 

 hay and other plants, of which the horses eat, come oftentimes entire 

 from them ; and we observe, that such vegetables do commonty spring 

 up from the soil of cattle as they chiefly eat ; as long knot-grass from this 

 beast ; short, clean, and sweet pasture from sheep and cows ; the sonchus, 

 or sow-thistle, from the swine. Ground mucked with horse-dung is al- 

 ways the most infected of any ; and if it be not perfectly consumed, it 

 makes your roots grow forked, fills them with worms, and imparts to 

 them an unpleasing relish ; but being laid on at the beginning of win- 

 ter, and turned in at spring, it succeeds sometimes with pulse. 



The dung of asses is highly esteemed, for its being better digested by 

 the long mastication and chewing of that dull animal ; but since we have 

 no quantity of it in this country, it does the least concern us. 



The dung of cows and oxen is, of all other, the most harmless, and the 

 most useful ; excellent to mingle with sandy and hot grounds, lean or dry, 

 and being applied before winter, renders it the most like natural earth,^ 

 and is, therefore, for the garden and orchard preferred to any other. To 

 use it, therefore, with the most certain success in such thirsty grounds, ap- 

 ply a plentiful surface of it, so blended, as the rain and showers may wash 

 m the virtue of it thoroughly ; but this is best done by making the dung 



