190 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
December 15. 
rungs in densely-populated places may spread into 
country districts, and along river-courses, under certain 
circumstances. The inferiority of the country over the 
town, in respect to its greater freedom from epidemics, 
is not quite so great as is supposed; and although 
nineteen deaths to the thousand, in the one case, be 
registered against twenty-six to the thousand in the 
other, it does not exactly follow that the country is 
healthier than the town to the extent which these 
numbers would indicate. 
The great advantage possessed by the country for 
bringing-up healthy children would prepare us to ex¬ 
pect a large increase of the country population at each 
census. But the reverse is the fact; it is the towns’ 
populations only which increase; immense numbers of 
country folks being added to them every year. So that 
the deaths in country parishes must he reckoned at so 
many per thousand less the tens, twenties, hundreds, 
who have moved off. And the deaths among these, 
wherever they go, must, ultimately, he somewhat above 
the average, as a certain portion of their lives will have 
been previously spent and gone in the place of their 
birth. The deaths of new-horn infants are not at all 
fully recorded in the country; nor are all epidemic 
causes of death carefully registered. In stating the age 
of very old people there is also a vulgar tendency to 
exaggeration. There may he a greater emigration from 
poor hilly countries than from the fertile plains, owing 
to the smaller means of employing spare hands in the 
pastoral condition ; and this may partly account for the 
small mortality apparent in the high lands, where those 
whom hunger spares of age decay. Still, after all 
deductions, some of which must he taken with con¬ 
siderable abatement, there is a notable balance in favour 
of longevity in these regions when compared with the 
low lands; not merely because all great cities are on 
the low land, and near the sea, or great rivers, but 
owing to certain peculiar attributes of the soil itself, 
which we are bound by the very nature of our office to 
proceed to descant upon. 
We have been at some pains to point out, that the 
sea, and running rivers, actually possess large sanitary 
influences, and that it is only when we altogether abuse 
their powers, and set them to execute cleansing ope¬ 
rations enormously beyond their natural capacity, that 
we make them into sources of disease. As with the 
water, so with the earth. The earth possesses large 
disinfecting powers; fixing, and rendering latent, or 
gradually converting to our use all animal and vegetable 
remains committed to it. But, in proportion to this 
absorbing power, up to a certain limit, is the proneness 
to give out noxious principles when the point of satu¬ 
ration is altogether exceeded. Alluvial lands, then, 
which have been frequently flooded, whether artificially 
or otherwise, become, at length, unhealthy only when 
overcharged with organic deposits, and not from any 
bad principle in the clay itself. 
Almost every well in towns, and about farm-yards, 
would be spoiled by the filtrations from neighbouring 
middensteads and drains, were it not that the inter¬ 
vening soil intercepts the mischief. The top-dressing 
with manure of rich meadows under the very windows 
of most country houses shews a strong faith, indeed, in 
the deodorizing abilities of mother earth. The same 
principle guides us in the formation of composts; in 
the ‘ strong measure’ of bringing up to the surface barren 
and hungry subsoil, and in the continual demand for 
fresh earth for garden purposes; old garden mould, and ! 
even that of long-ploughed fields, becoming, in time, 
injurious to the health of some cultivated plants, not 
from its poverty, but from its very grossness, which 
grossness makes it an invaluable top-dressing for poor 
pastures. 
The reverent custom of committing to the ground all 
that remains of our mortal bodies, only becomes a 
source of ill-health in very crowded places. Most 
country schools are near the churchyard, and this is the 
usual locality, also, of the personage; yet country clergy, 
men and country lads have few ailments. Where it 
becomes necessary to close a burial-ground, it should be 
entirely coated over with fresh earth and green turf. 
The classical writers founded many beautiful moral 
reflections on the tendency of the earth itself to become, 
from long use, foul and effete; which the subsequent 
history of the once fertile Latin lands has singularly 
corroborated. The history of the ancient rivers of 
Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, America, and other like 
regions, is full of instances of corruption and decay 
which have come over once-cultivated tracts, not from 
the want, but from the excessive accumulation of the 
common elements of agricultural prosperity. (Mark 
the wisdom which enjoined sabbaths, and jubilees of 
rest, and other restrictions, upon a too-greedy husbandry 
in a land, the oldest of the old seats of civilization, and 
which yet alone of these all remains fit for human 
abode!) 
It was the common practice of the ancients, when a 
siege, a fire, or other calamity had destroyed their cities, 
to rebuild them on a fresh site a little removed from the 
old one. The foundations of ill-drained old houses and 
streets, and even of old farm-buildings, in very long 
process of time become unwholesome. As to poultry- 
houses and yards, there is no doubt that they soon 
become tainted and require change. Cattle have to be 
occasionally removed from a well-stocked pasture to 
allow the ground a week or two to sweeten, and take up 
the manure dropped upon the surface. 
As this attractive quality of the soil is partly de¬ 
pendent on its porousness, it may be increased by 
artificial means; and this is the object of many agri- 
cultural and gardening processes. Recently charred 
substances possess this quality in an eminent degree; * 
and intractable subsoils, if slightly burnt, become much 
more tractable; besides being economically moved when 
no longer holding a quantity of water in combination. 
Simple exposure to the air, for a year or two, effects 
nearly the same thing, especially if assisted by occa¬ 
sional turning; and naked fallows may prove to have 
* Newly-burnt ashes were enjoined on the Jews as one method of 
purification. So little have we, in fact, to add to what religion has 
already taught us, if we read rightly.—J. J. 
