OF EARTH. ' 7^ 



and with the liquor remaining in your great cistern, sprinkle the several 

 composts, and make them up for use, casting the coarse remaining stuff, 

 which would not pass the riddle, into the cistern again for farther mor- 

 tification ; and so keep your pit filled with fresh materials from time to 

 time, after the same method : others, in the mean time, lay their 

 several ingredients by themselves in some shady corner, which being 

 frequently stirred, after two or three years thus mingle them at dis- 

 cretion 



There are some who advise us to suffer our mixture to remain till it be 

 quite dry, after it is thus refined ; and then, being beaten to dust, to 

 strew it upon the ground. And indeed, this seems in Pliny's time to have 

 been the custom ; nor do I contradict it, provided you could water it, or 

 were sure of a shower before the sun had drank too deeply of the spirit 

 and vigour of it, which, reduced in this manner, it does easily part with. 



Now the reason of our thus treating composts of various soils and sub- 

 stances, is not only to dulcify, sweeten, and free them from the noxious 

 qualities they otherwise retain, and consequently impart, when applied, 

 as usually we find them, crude, undigested, and inactive ; but for being 

 immoderately hot and bvu'ning, or else rank, and apter to engender ver- 

 mine, weeds, and fungous excrescences, than to produce wholesome plants, 

 fruits, and roots, fit for the table, and grateful to the palate ; for which 

 effect, it should be thoroughly concocted, aired, of a scent agreeable, and 

 reduced to the next disposition of a sweet and natural earth, short and 

 tractable, yet not so macerated as to lose any of its virtue. The proper 

 season, therefore, for this work, is the beginning of the autumnal equinox, 

 and wdnd westerly, both to prepare and lay it on your land, that, whe- 

 ther it be of wet or dry consistence, it may have a gentle soaking into the 

 earth. As for fresh dung, such as sheep make when they are folded, it 



" In large families, a rich species of manure may be collected, by supplying the pits under 

 the necessaries with vegetable ofFal from the gardens, and fresh mould from the commons. 

 We cannot pay too much attention to the formation of compost dunghills ; for, without 

 their assistance, the utmost exertion of the plough and spade, will but little avail. In this 

 particular the farmer should be scrupulously nice, and he should embrace every opportu- 

 nity to improve his stock of dung. 



Volume II. 3 P 



