72 A DISCOURSE 



liquid for irrigation. Cat first, here by tlie way, greatly to be reproved 

 is the heaping of a deal of undigested soil, and other trash, exposed (as 

 we commonly find it) to the heat of the sun, continual rains, and drying 

 whids, as it lies in the wide field, without the least coverture or shade ; 

 by which means all the virtue is drawn forth and carried away, leaving 

 little more than a dry and insipid congestion of caput mortuum, and per- 

 haps a florid green circle, or fairy dance, at the bottom, which the im- 

 pregnated rains have enriched with what has washed from the heap ; 

 wherefore to prevent this, and make one load of our prepared soil worth 

 ten of it : 



Cut a square or oblong pit, of thirty or forty feet in length, at the least 

 four feet in depth, and ten feet over, or of what dimensions or figure 

 you think will suffice to furnish you with store : let one of the sides or 

 edges be made so sloping, as to receive a cart or wheelbarrow to load and 

 imload easily, and let the bottom and sides, also, be so well paved, or laid 

 Avith a bed of small chalk, clay, or the like, that it may be capable of 

 retaining water like a cistern : if to this you can commodiously direct any 

 channels or gutters from your stable, and other sinks about the house, it 

 will be much the better. The pit thus prepared, and under covert, (for 

 that I should have premised,) so as at least the downright rains may not 

 fall upon it, (but when you please,) cast into it, first, your stable-soil with 

 the litter, a foot or more thick, according to the depth of your pit ; upon 

 this lay a bed of fine mould, on that another bed of cider-marc, rotten 

 fruit, and garden ofFal ; on this, a couch of pigeon and poultry-dung, 

 with more horse-dung ; then a stratum of sheep-dung, a layer of earth 

 again, then oxen-dung ; lastly, ashes, soot, fern, a moist and dry bottom 

 of wood-stack, saw-dust, dry scourings of ponds and ditches, with all 

 other ingredients, as you happen to amass them, till the cistern be full 

 and heaped up ; upon all this cast plentiful water from time to time, 

 which if you can have out of some pond where cattle use to drink and 

 cool themselves, it will be excellent. At the expiration of two years, 

 you may confidently open your magazine, and separate the layers as they 

 rise, to cast them into other small pits or receptacles made a little con- 

 cave to receive them, where you may stir, air, mingle, and work them in 

 with fresh mould, or one with the other, as you find cause, till they be- 

 come comparatively sweet and agreeable to the scent. Lastly, you may 

 pass them through a screen made of laths, placed at moderate intervals. 



