OF THE VINE. 
S3 
the dirt, or fcrapings, of hard roads and pavements, to enter 
into the vineal compoft, it may not be improper to bring this 
material again under coniideration. 
The dufl:, or dirt, from roads, confifts principally of the 
following particulars : Firft, the foil of the vicinity ; fecondly, 
the dung and urine of horfes and other animals j and thirdly, 
the materials of the road itfelf when pulverized. Various other 
matter may be brought by winds, and by other means, but the 
foregoing may be deemed the principal. The firft of the above 
articles is brought to roads by the wheels of carriages, and the 
legs of horfes and other animals ; the laft is the worft part of 
the materials, as the duft and fcrapings from roads, made and 
mended with foft ftone that grinds faft away, is much inferior 
in its vegetating quality to that which is colledted from hard 
roads. On the whole, however, this ingredient of compoft 
•from the roads is unqueftionably in general of a fertile nature, 
which may be attributed in part to the dung, urine, and other 
rich materials of which it is compofed ; and, in part, to a kind 
of magnetic power, imprefled upon it by fridion, and its per- 
petual pulverization.*^ 
E ^ The 
■ ^ 
“ I think it -would be evinced, as conftant and undeniable, that, amongft the 
mechanical aids, (wherein ftercoration has no hand) that of pulverizing the earth by 
contufion, and breaking it with a plow or fpade, is of admirable efFedf, to difpofe it 
for the reception of all the natural impregnations. For the earth, efpecially if frefli, 
has a certain magnetifm in it, by which it attrafts the fait, power, or virtue, (call 
it 
