SAN 
and loose. The best sand for the farmer’s 
use is that which is washed by rains from 
roads or hills, or tliat which is taken from 
the beds of rivers ; the common sand that 
is dug in pits never answers nearly so well. 
However, if mixed with dung, it is much 
better than laid on alone : and a very fine 
manure is made by covering the bottom of 
sheep-.^lds with several loads of sand every 
week, vvhich are to be taken away, and laid 
on cold stiff lands, impregnated as they are 
with the dung and the urine of the sheep. 
Beside clay-land there is another sort of 
ground very improveable by sand ; this is 
that sort of black boggy land on which 
bushes and sedge grow naturally, and which 
they cut into turf, in some places. Six 
hundred load of sand being laid upon an 
acre of this land, according to the Cheshire 
measure, which is near double the statute 
acre, meliorate it so much, that without 
ploughing it will yield good crops of oats or 
tares, though before it would have produced 
scarcely any thing. If this crop is taken off, 
the land will be well dunged, and if then 
laid down for grass, it will yield a large crop 
of sweet hay. 
Once sanding this land will improve it for 
a vast number of years, and it will yield two 
crops of hay in the year, if there be weather 
to make it in. Some land in Cheshire has 
been, by this means, rendered of twelve 
times its former value to the owner. The 
bogs of Ireland, when drained, have been 
rendered very fruitful land, by mixing sand 
in this manner among tlie earth, of which 
they consist. Add to this, that in all these 
boggy lands, the burning them, or firing 
their own turf upon them, is also a great 
advantage. The common peat, or turf- 
ashes, mixed with the sand for these pur- 
poses, add greatly to its virtue. Sea-sand, 
which is thrown up in creeks and other 
places, is by much the richest of all sand for 
manuring tlie earth; partly its saltness, and 
partly the fat and unctuous filth that is 
mixed among it, give it this great virtue. 
In the western parts of England, that lie 
upon the sea coast, they make very great 
advantages of it. The fragments of sea- 
shells also, which are always in great abun- 
dance in this sand, add to its virtues; and 
it is always the more esteemed by the far- 
mers, the more of these fragments there are 
among it. 
The sea-sand, used as manure in different 
parts of the kingdom, is of three kinds : 
that about Plymouth, and on other of the 
southern coasts, is of a blue-grey colour, like 
SAN 
ashes, which is probably owing to the shells 
of muscles, and other fish of that or the like 
colour, being broken and mixed among it 
in great quantity. Westward, near the 
Land’s End, the sea-sand is very white, and 
about the isles of Scilly it is very glistening, 
with small particles of talc ; on the coasts 
of the North Sea, the sand is yellowish, 
brown, or reddish, and contains so great a 
quantity of fragments of cockle-shells, that 
it seems to be chiefly composed of them. 
That sea sand is accounted best which is of 
a reddish colour : the next in value to this 
is the bluish, and the white is the worst 
of all. Sea-sand is best when taken up 
from under the water, or from sand-banks, 
which are covered by every tide. The 
small grained sand is most sudden in its 
operation, and is therefore best for the te- 
nant who is only to take three or four crops; 
but the coarse or large grained sand is 
much better for the landlord, as the good it 
does lasts many years. 
Sand bags, in the art of war, are bags 
filled with earth or sand, holding each about 
a cubic foot : their use is to raise parapets 
in haste, or to repair what is beaten down. 
Sat^b flood, a terrible mischi,ef, incident 
torthe lands of Suffolk, and some other parts 
of England; which are frequently covered 
with vast quantities of sand, rolling in upon 
them like a deluge of water, from sandy hills 
in their neighbourhood. 
The flowing of sand, though far from 
being so tremendous and hurtful as in Ara- 
bia, is of very bad consequences in this 
country, as many valuable pieces of land 
have thus been entirely lost; of which we 
give the following instances from Blr. Pen- 
nant, together with a probable means of 
preventing them in future. “ I have more 
than once,” says he, “ on the eastern coasts 
of Scotland, observed the calamitous state 
of several extensive tracts, formerly in a 
most flourishing condition, at present cover- 
ed with sands, unstable as those of the de- 
serts of Arabia. The parish of Furvic, in 
the county of Aberdeen, is now reduced to 
two farms, and above 5001. a year lost to 
the Errol family, as appears by the oath of 
the factor in 1600, made before^ the Court 
of Session, to ascertain Jhe minister’s salary. 
Not a vestige is to be seen of any buildings, 
unless a fragment of the church. The es- 
tate of Coubin, near Forres, is another me- 
lancholy instance. This tract was once 
worth 3001. a year, at this time overwhelm- 
ed with sand. This strange inundation was 
still ill motion in 1769, chiefly when a strong 
