plants with (the other element) water: but this we offer only as a conjecture. If this reafoning however, is juft, it fhews how greatly manure exceeds tillage, in promoting vegetation: the end for which both are used.

Before we quit this part, we have one caution to offer, with regard to the eleventh, twelfth, and fome following chapters; viz. that by the words dreffing, and dreffings, which very often occur in those chapters, they are to understand plowing, and plowings; even Mr. Tull is reprefented as thus mifufing the term: but we are well fatisfied, he was too great a judge in thofe affairs, thus to put the cart for the horse. By the way, this hint is intended only for thofe Readers who are fo unacquainted with husbandry, as, like thefe Authors, not to know dressing from plowing.

In the fecond part, Of the Advantages of Tillage, Dung is reprefented, from Mr. Tull, as of ill effect, in fpoiling the tafte of the products of the earth in fome degree;' for tho' it increases their growth, it weakens their qualities, and even their • taftes.' Dung alfo draws infects together, it is faid, which eat the produce.' The roots of trees in dunged ground, al. ways fuffer by infects(12), and for the fame reafon, it is faid, the Florists have banished it from their practice. To remedy this evil, it is propofed, to mix lime with the dung in making up the heap. A layer of quicklime firft, then a layer of dung; and this, they fay, will deftroy the mischievous infects; and kill, in great part, the feeds of weeds.

The experiment, from Mr. Evelyn, of pulverizing and expofing earth, to render it fertile, without manure, is more than once or twice recited in this book; and Mr. Du Hamel, we are told, to prove the truth of it, powdered a quantity of clay, and fifted it through a fine fieve,' but afterwards watering it, it became as tough and stiff as it had been originally;' from whence

(12) As all manures are, we apprehend, fermenting fubftances, and as infects, invited by their heat and moisture, when in a fermenting fiate, may refort to them,-dung, as a fermenting fubstance, is no worse, we fuppofe, in this refpect, than other manures; and if that is rejected on this account, fo may all other manures. But, in truth, there is very little in it that is worth regarding, in comparifon with the great advantage attending the ufe of dung. This we affert from experience; if that will not fatisfy our Authors, we will fhew them that we are not deftitute of reafon. For, if they will please to reflect, how great a quantity of fixed falts there is in dung, efpecially the urinous part; and how pernicious thofe falts are to infects, we prefume they will allow, that (befides experience) we have fome reason in Rerum Natura, for this opinion of ours.

he

be concluded, that this affertion of Evelyn's was not true of all kinds of earth. But our Authors fay, Mr. Du Hamel did not fairly try the experiment, because he did not expofe it to the weather during the time Mr. Evelyn directed. For we have feen, fay they, in the preceding part of this work, that the effects of fire, in a proper degree of calcination, renders clay fertile. We have obferved alfo--that the fun and air have, in thefe refpects, the effects of fire, only more gradually(13).' And as the powdering the clay, would, it is faid, have made it fitter to receive the influence of the fun and air, and the continual ftirring would have exposed every part of it to their effect, it is not, we are told, easy to fay, how much the procefs, fairly tried, would have done towards the rendering even clay fertile(14).

Yet, nevertheless, this may be feen from it, (fay our Authors) that' the horfehoeing husbandry is more proper for light and loamy foils, than for ftiff and clayey. Thefe laft require both manure and much tillage; a great deal of tillage to break them, and' fand, and proper manures, to keep them in order. By this means they become fome of the best foils we have. For that manures are neceffary to clays, to keep them in good condition, after they have been divided by tillage: and to-light foils, because they want matter of nourithment. They enrich thefe, and divide the other.' But where manures are fcarce, the horfehoeing hufbandry will, on moft foils, fupply the place of them; and where they are ever fo plentiful, it will give them much greater effect.'

Wheat is faid to be much the ftrongeft corn, and to require the moft tillage: it fucceeds yet better when more is given it than ufual; and experience thews, that this may fupply the

(13) And the Reader may fee our remarks on this opinion of theirs, in the Review for May laft, page 390.

(14) Unless the procefs could have altered the magnitude, or figure, o both, of the particles of clay; what could it have done more than palverize it ftill more minutely? And the confequence of this greater pulverization would be a greater fubfiding, and clofer fettling of the parts; unless this pulverization were continued: and of this our Authors foon became fenfible; for, prefently after, they fay it is certain, that clayey foils are apt to grow fiff again, after ever fo much tillage,' &c.

* Which, indeed, was the end and intent of the horfehoeing hufbandry, to keep the ground in contant tillage, and thus not give it time to fubfide to any great degree.

place of manures; if, inftead of four dreffings(15), and dung, which is ufually given it, eight were beftowed, without dung, it will fucceed as well: and coft much less than manures.

Alfo, fand, we are told, is a good manure for clay, and anfwers the end of tillage(16); it breaks the foil-lets in the fun and rains(17), and gives paffage to the roots.

Light foils are improved by dreffings, [plowings they mean} but they need not be fo frequent as on others(18). To these, manures are wanted to give richness, as to the others, to di•vide and keep the foil divided.' There is no fear, they say, of exhaufting thefe light lands by expofing them to the fun, which only evaporates the watery parts, not the folid fubftance which nourishes the plants. It is certain, that all these lands are improved by dreffings, [plowings] and those not in small number(19),' &c.-and another great advantage attending thefe repeated turnings(20) is, that they entirely deftroy weeds.

Woodland, when it is ftubbed for corn, is fo rich, our Au thors fay, that it will produce vaft crops of corn, for many years, without the leaft manure,' by the moderate tillage of the horsehoeing husbandry (21).

We

(1) Our Authors have not yet learned to diftinguish between plowing (or tillage) and dreffing (or manure).

(16) Sand is certainly a moft useful mixture for clays, if laid on in a large quantity; and if chalk be joined to it, not sparingly, but about twenty-five or thirty loads of chalk, with near double that quantity of fand, per acre, this will wonderfully open, warm, and dry, a clayey foil; but the expence should be well confidered, as well as the conveniency of obtaining thefe materials, before the work is begun.

(17) If the fand only lets the rains in, it would, we conecive, be rather hurtful, by increafing the cold, wet quality of the clay. Therefore, it fhould either let the rains through, or evaporate them; and we are of opinion, it may, in part, do both; the one by its porofity, and the other by its actual and effective heat.

(18) Here we are told, that light foils need not be plowed mach. (19) But here we may plow them a good deal. It is really irkfome to us to attend to their numerous contradictions..

(20) We have hitherto fuppofed our Authors ignorant of the term Plowing; but we begin to think, now, that they have a peculiar an tipathy to that word, and had rather pronounce any other than the true one; perhaps it may be to them what Shibboleth was to the Ephraimites.

(21) But if the ground is fo very rich, there can be no occafion for the horfchoeing hufbandry; for full crops may be taken, and not two

We are now got to the Preparation of Heathy Land for Corn which, as containing nothing material, we pafs by, and proceed to the next article, Of the Preparation of Land for Corn after the artificial Graffes. But we find no other artificial Graffes taken notice of than St. Foin. Though Clover is a much more common, as well as more profitable grafs, Trefoyl, called by fome Cinquefoin, and Rye-grafs, are alfo commonly known, and much fown, tho' neither of them have the honour of a place in this Compleat Body of Husbandry. St. Foin, we are told, draws its nourishment deep, it has a fingle, long, and large root, which penetrates, counting the extremeft fibres, • at least fifteen feet deep; and does not exhauft the land near the furface, which is the feat of nourishment for the corn?? and it is faid to ferve as a kind of fallowing' to a light and ftoney foil; tho' thefe deep-rooted graffes are of the fame be'nefit to all foils that they are to this.' Yet fome may want [their] affiftance more than others. They prepare the land for corn better than almost any other method (22). A fingle crop of St. Foin fometimes yielding four pounds an acre(23); and after it has flood thus feven years, the land will be fo rich, that instead of requiring to be fallowed and 'dunged(24) for wheat, the Farmer will be obliged to fow that ' upon barley-stubble, &c.

• The

thirds of the ground left fallow every year, as it must be if horfe hoed. Befides, the ground will be fo full of fmall ftringy roots and fibres, tuffacks of grafs, old roots of weeds, and other foulness, that we may venture to fay, it will be next to impoffible for the drill to plant the rows, or the hoe-plow to hoe them afterwards. The roots and foulnefs abovementioned, will fo hang about those inftruments, and drive up in heaps, and draw out of the rows pulling these up with them, that the ground would not look as if it had been under the anagement of philofophical Hufbandmen, but rather as if it had been tilled by hogs.

(22) But the land must be well prepared for them firft; and be well dreffed afterwards; or elfe as little advantage will accrue from these wonder-working graffes, as from corn; and perhaps less.

(23) But oftener one pound, if it be not manured, which they give no hint of; and, very likely, before it has lain feven years with grafs, the term they propofe, it may not be worth ten fhillings an acre, except it be well dreffed.

(24) Which it ought to be, to take away the hollowness and deadnefs of the ground; two very bad qualities, which light poor foils, that have lain down long with St. Foin, always contract: and it is litthe lefs than owning the fame in faying, that except the land be well

• The best method of preparing land for corn after St. Foin, is, by firft fowing it with turneps(25).' It should, they fay, be plowed up in the winter, with a four coultered plow, for turneps, for the following feafon."

In the chapter of the preparation of land for corn after common graffes, the Authors explain an ambiguous term that has long puzzled us, viz. the word dreffing; which is ufed, it fcems, in this part of their work for plowing: tho' they tell us, that in another part of their work they have, in concurrence ⚫ with the common custom,' ufed it for manures. It is pity they had not acquainted their Readers with their motives for changing the common cuftomary meaning of words: this is far from being confiftent with that explicitnefs of which they made fuch profeffion in their propofals, and in the beginning of this work.

Our Authors, in this chapter, again rehearse, in a circumftantial and minute manner, the Tullian theory, of fine earth being the food of plants, and that the effects of tillage and manure are the fame, and confift only in the breaking and dividing the earth (26): and, in confequence of this doctrine, they affert,

tilled after St. Foin, ther place, the land

that

the firfl crops will be very poor,' (tho' in anowas fad to be fo rich as to require' no fallow or dung) and that even oats will not grow upon it to any profit without good tillage.'

(25) As the turnep is a long tap-rooted plant, and, like St. Foin, draws its nourishment deep, it muft, confequently, be improper to fucceed that, by their own principles. And we are affured by Mr. Tull, that turne's never thrive well immediately after St. Foin.

(26) But there is fomething more in manure (as we have alrea dy hinted) than our, Authors will allow. For manure not only pulverizes, but railes, by its fermentation, a warmth in the ground of the fame nature, tho' not in the fame degree, with a hotbed; and, therefore, if dung under a cucumber bed, be allowed to promote the growth, &c. of the cucumbers, by its heat only, the fame dung must have a proportionable effect when laid on corn-land, by its heat only, as well as by its pulverization. To deny this, is, in effect, to affert, that froft in winter will forward vegetation as much as the fun in fummer, becaufe it pulverizes the earth more. But we have not yet met with one Farmer who expected a crop of corn from froft alone: and, indeed, it is contrary to experience; for we find a harveft is not to be had until the fun hath done its office by heating, as well as the frott by pulverizing the land. Nor has the harvest failed after winters that have paffed with very little froft, (it is true the crops are then fldom fo good) but thofe fummers which have had the leaf benefit of the fun, by reafon of extraordinary prevailing cold,

or