S O I
S O I
All land that moulders into duff: with fruit, with all forts of warm lands, black mould, yellow clays, if not too fpewy •when wet, and all that turn black after rain, are in general good lands for corn. Land that produces large trees, as alfo fuch as produces black thorn, weeds, thirties, rank grafs, and the like, and that lies in bottoms open to the eaft or fouth, being well {heltered from other winds, may be always efteemed to bid fair for good land. Thyme, ftraw- berries, betony, and wild fage, diredt, to the places where woods will thrive beft ; and camomile is always an indica- tion of a land being difpofed to bear corn in large crops. All land that binds after froft and rain, all that turns white, and is full of worms, or is very moift and cold, or that is too hot and dry, and that lies open to the north on the fides of hills, expofed to cold winds and frofts in winter, and to the fun's fcorching heat in fummcr ; and all that bears na- turally holly, box, ivy, juniper, fern or brakes, furzes, broom, and heath ; and lands that bear mofles, rufhes, yar- row, and wild tanzy, with flags, and other fuch weeds, which betoken a cold and damp ground, are lefs fit for corn, though other things may fucceed on it. Where plants appear biafted, fhrubby, and curled, thefe are diftempers in them occafioned by fudden changes of wet and cold, and a dry heat. All thefe lands are, by their natural produce, to be judged lefs fruitful than the others. Blackilh, dun, or yellow fand, and very hot ftony gravel, are generally efteem- ed very unfruitful. Chalky lands are naturally cold, and therefore they require warm comports ; and this is the reafon why chalk itfclf is fo good a manure for hot and dry lands. Sandy land, well manured with marl, will bear turneps, or white or blue peafe, to great advantage. Mortimer'sHuf- bandry, p. 68.
The very greateft article, in the culture of plants, trees, &c. is the foil; and in many cafes it is not fufficient to have found a foil-, which once tried proves convenient, to fup- pofe that it will always continue fo. In track of time the foil, which was once proper for the nourifhment of fome peculiar vegetable, lofes its virtue ; and this fooner in fome lands, and later in others. All who are converfant in huf- bandry, are well acquainted with this. If a good piece of ground be chofen for the fowing of wheat, and it produces very well the firff. year, it will not for ever continue to do fo -, the fecond year's crop will be perhaps good, and the third and fourth tolerable: all this while the land is in heart, as the farmers exprefs it, but after this it becomes improper, and very little wheat will be raifed if fown upon it; yet when it refufes to produce wheat, it will, without any al- teration, produce barley in fufficient plenty for fome years ; when it will yield no more good crops of barley, it may be ftill fowed with oats, and will produce that grain as well as frefh land ; and when it has been worn out with all thefe, it will produce peafe. After this it is made quite barren, and can be of no farther ufe to the farmer, the vegetative quality of it being worn off by thefe fucceflive crops, each fort of grain taking off" that part which is more peculiarly fitted for its own nourifhment ; the wheat firft, and the reft in their order. While one of thefe plants i3 taking up what belongs to its particular nature, the reft all remain quiet and undifturbed; and thefe are afterwards carried away by fucceflive changes of plants, which require them ; and at length, by the whole, all the vegetable matter is carried away, and the lands fo drained of it, that there muff, be a fupply of fomething in its room, before any thing more of any kind can be raifed from it. Philof. Traufadt, N° 253. p. 217.
The fupply of frefh. vegetable matter, in the place of that which was drained away by the fucceflive growths of plants. is done by feveral ways, but by none fo well, as by letting it lie fallow for fome time ; in this cafe the rain falling up- on it, the vegetable earth, which this water contains, i; depofited in fufficient quantity, and this is alone fufficient to give nutriment to new crops ; and it is proved by this, that the rain water, as well as other water, does contain fuch earth as is neceffary to vegetation. The other means of giving a fupply to the exhaufted earth are the manures laid on it by the farmer, and thefe are, all of them, fome animal or vegetable remains, and their ufe is to drain into the earth thofe particles from themfelves, which may be again received into the bodies of new productions of the fame kinds. Blood, urine, the excrements of animals, with their feveral parts, as horns, hoofs, hair, feathers, calcined fhells, and vegetable bodies in an altered ftate, fuch as lees of wine and beer, afhes of burnt vegetables, leaves, ftraw, roots, ftubble, and the like, when in a decaying ftate, turned under the earth again by plowing, there become difunited into their component parts, and thefe again are carried up into other new plants.
If we take off our thoughts from the fields, and look amonf the gardens, we there meet with farther confirmations of th fame thing : the trees, fhrubs, and herbs cultivated in thefe, after they have continued in one ftation, till they have de- rived thence the greater part of the matter fitted for their encreafe and nouriihment, will cither decay, or degenerate, unlcfs they have a new fupply of manure added to the earth
about their roots, or are themfelves tranflated into other earth, not fo drained of that particular matter out of which they are to be fed.
The older trees have fome more fupplies of fit matter than the younger, by means of the length of their roots, which, when they have drained one fpot of ground, ufually are car- ried much farther into another, and reach a very great way; but at laft they can reach no farther, and all fails, unlefs fuch a fupply of manure, or the being removed into frefh earth, fupply that nourifhment they can no longer have where they ftand. The gardiners, when they tranfplant trees, cut off thefe long roots ; but though they only do this to prevent the trouble of opening a larger hole than neceffary for their reception, yet there is in nature this good reafon for it, that they have, when brought to a frefh foil, no occafion for thofe long roots to draw nourifhment from afar off, when there is enough of it every where about them. What is to be learned from the whole of this, is, that the modern fyftem is erroneous, which fays that water is the only thing that gives nourifhment and encreafe to plants ; fince, if this was the cafe, there could be no need of manures, nor any need of altering the crop, in order to its fucceeding, or of tranfplanting trees to make them thrive. It is plain that fome fort of terreftrial matter, taken from among the foil, is what gives encreafe and bulk to plants ; for were it only water, the rain falling in all places alike, all would alike be at all times fuited to produce all plants ; and if the earth, according to Lord Bacon's fyftem, ferved to no other purpofe to plants and trees, but to keep their roots firm, and to defend them from over-heat, and over-cold, one earth would do as well for thefe ufes as an- other, and the fame earth would do as well for the fame plant as a different earth. Philofoph. Tranfacb. N° 253.
P- 2I 9- , ■
Mr. Tull thinks, that the only difference of foil, except the richnefs, is the different degree of heat and moirture it has; the earth is equally proper, of whatever kind it be, and if thefe additions be properly adjufted, anyy^V will nourifh any plant- Let a bed of thyme and a bunch of rufhes be removed into each other's place, without any farther care, and both will die: but let them change their foil, by removing the earth wherein the thyme grew, from the dry hill down into the watery bottom, and plant rufhes therein ; and carry the moift earth, in which the rufhes grew, out of its wet place, up the hill, and fet the thyme in it, it will be found, that the fame quantity of unchanged earth will ferye for either : the rufhes will grow in the earth of the hill when carried into the bogg, and the thyme will grow in the earth of the bottom where the rufhes before grew, as foon as it is car- ried up the hill. So that while the earth is the fame, it is only the accidental addition of more or lefs water that makes it fit for the growing of thyme, or the growing of rufhes.
Earth is the true food of all plants, it is that alone which gives them their encreafe, and any earth will do for any plant, with the addition of the other acceffories in due pro- portion ; that is, an acceffory to vegetation, as water is r but then it does no more than that to give the matter of en- creafe to the plant. The earth of England, when a proper degree of heat is given it in a ftove, will nourifh the plants of the Indies; and, on the other hand, the earth of the Indies, when expofed to the natural cold of the Englifh climate, will nourifh Englifh. plants. There is no need, in confidering the nature of a foil for plants, to have recourfe to tnanfmutation ; for whether air or water, or both of them, be, or be not transformed into earth, the thing is the fame in regard to the plant, if it be earth, when it is taken up by its roots : and it is very certain, from experiments, that neither air alone, nor water alone, as fuch, can nourifh plants. Thefe kind of metamorphofes may properly enough be confidered in diflertations purely concerning matter, and to difcover what the component particles of earth are; but they are not at all neceffary to be known, in order to the maintaining of plants. Tzill's Horfehoeing Hufbandry, p. 14. Brickijh Soil, a term ufed by our farmers to exprefs a kind of hazely earth, or land, with a reddifh caft. It is frequent in Effex, and fome other counties, and approaches to the nature of a loam. It has no ftones in it, and does not bind after wet as clay does, but lets all the water in that comes, and has no ftones in it ; whereas all clays hold the water till the fun exhales, and after rain with a froft moulder into duff.
Thefe loams are an excellent mixture for other earths, being a happy medium between two extremes, uniting what is too loofe, cooling what is too hot, and entertaining a moderate fhare of moifture.
The beft produce of the brick earth is rye ; if well dunged it will bear white oats, turneps, barley, wheat, buckwheat, and peafe. The natural produce, in weeds, is broom, fern, quick-grafs, and the like. If it be well dunged, it will produce large crops of clover, but it foon wears out of it, and fhould therefore be fowed mixed with rye-grafs. The beft manure for thefe lands is chalk, mixed with coal-afiies : x ' marl
