and burning them in close and reverberating furnaces to which a Tube adapted near the bottom may convey the spirits into a Recipient as he describes the Process I mention this the rather for the real effects which I have been told of this Menstrue from very good Testimony And doubtless he who were skill'd to extract it in quantity and to dulcifie and qualifie it for use a true spirituous Nitre may do abundantly more in the way of the improvements we have celebrated with a small quantity than with whole loads nay hundreds of loads of the best and richest dry Composts which he can devise to make But besides this any houses of Ordure or rancid mould strong salts vinous liquors Vrine Ashes Dust shovelings of the kenuel and streets c. kept dry and cover'd for three or four years will be converted into Peter without half this trouble especially if you mingle it with the dung of Pigeons Poultry and other salacious Fowl which feed on Corn Or those who would not be at the charge of distilling for these advantages may make experiment of the so famous Muck-water not long since cry'd up for the doing wonders in the field Throw of the shortest and best Marle into your Cistern exceedingly comminute and broken which you may do with an iron Rake or like Instrument till the liquor become very thick cast on this the dung of Fowl Conies Sheep c. frequently stirring it to this add the soil of Horses and Cows Grains Lees of Wine Ale Beer any sort of beverage broths brine fatty and greasy stuff of the Kitchin then cast in a quantity of Lime or melting Chalk of which there is a sort very unctuous also blood urine c. mixed with the water and with this sprinkle your Ground at seasonable times and when you have almost exhausted the Cistern of the liquid mingle the residue with the grosser Compost of your Stable and Cow-house and with layers of Earth Sand Lime S. S. S. frequently moistned with uncrude water the taking up of which you may much facilitate by sinking a Tub or Vessel near the corner of the Cistern and piercing it with large holes at the bottom and sides by which means you may take it out so clean as to make use of it through a great Syringe or watring Engine such as being us'd to extinguish fire will exalt and let it fall by showers on the Ground and is much the more natural way of irrigation and dispatches the work This Liquor has the reputation also for insuccation of Corn and other Grain to which some add a fine sifting of Lime-dust on it and when that is dry to repeat it with new infusions and siftings But There is yet a shorter Process namely the watring with Fishmongers-wash impregnated with the sweepings of Ships and Vessels trading for Salt adding to it the blood of the Slaughter-house with Lime as above but this is also much too fierce for any present use till it be perfectly diluted which is a caution indispensably necessary when ever you would apply such powerful affusions lest it destroy and burn up instead of curing and inriching Another take as follows Rain-water of the Equinox q. s. boil'd with store of Neats dung till it be very strong of it dissolve one pound of Salt-Peter in every pottle of water whilst this is a little tepid macerate your seeds for twenty four hours dry them gently rather with a cloth than by the fire sow in the barrenest Earth or water Fruit-trees with it for prodigious effects Or thus Take two quarts of the same water Neats-dung as before boil'd to the consumption of half strain it casting into the percolation two handfuls of bay-Bay-salt and of Salt-Peter ana Another Take Rain-water which has stood till putrified add to it Neats Pigeon or Sheeps-dung expose it for Insolation a week or ten dayes then pass it through a course strainer infuse more of the same soil and let it stand in the Sun a week longer strain it a second time add to it common-Common-salt and a little Oxes Gall c. Another Take quick Lime Sheeps dung at discretion put into rain-Rain-water four fingers eminent to ten pints of this Liquor add one of Aqua-vitae macerate your Seeds or water with it any lean Earth where you would plant for wonderful effects Infuse three pound of the best Indian Niter in fifteen Gallons of water irrigate your barren Mould 't was successfully try'd amongst Tulips and Bulbs where the Earth should by no means as we have said be forc'd by Composts But a gentler than either is A dilution of Milk with Rain-water sprinkl'd upon unsleckt Lime first sifted on your beds and so after every watering the Lime repeated These with divers more which I might superadd not taken and transcrib'd out of Common Receipt-Books and such as pretend to Secrets but most of them experimented I thought fit to mention that upon repetition of Tryals the curious might satisfie themselves and as they have opportunity improve them whilst perhaps as to irrigations less exalted liquors were more natural And what if Essays were made of Liquors per Lixivium the Plant reduc'd to ashes might it not be more connatural since we find by more frequent tryal that the burning of stubble before the Rains descend on it impregnates ground by the dissolution of its spermatic salts I only name the naked Phlegm of Plants distill'd either to use alone or extract the former salt but I say I only mention them for the curious to examine and ex abundanti For certainly to return a little and speak freely my thoughts concerning them most exalted Menstrues and as they dignifie them with a great name Essentiated Spirits I say all hasty motions and extraordinary fermentations though indeed they may possibly give suddain rise and seemingly exalt the present vigour of Plants are as pernicious to them as Brandy and hot-waters are to Men and therefore wherever these ardent Spirits are apply'd they should be pour'd at convenient distances from any part of the Plant that the virtue may be convey'd through some better qualified medium But when all is done waters moderately impregnated and imbodied with honest Composts and set in the Sun are more safe and I think more natural For as the Learn'd Dr. Sharrok truly affirms Water is of its own Constitution alone a soil to Vegetables not only as the most genuine Vehicle of the riches which it imparts to Plants through the several strainers and by means of which all change and melioration is effected but for that it is of all other substances best dispos'd for ingression to insinuate into and fertilize the Earth which is the reason that floated and irriguous grounds are so pregnant Besides it is of all that pretend to it nearest of blood as I may say to the whole Vegetable Family For to assert with any confidence what part of the meer Earth passes into their composition or whether it serve as we touch'd before
only for stability or as a womb and receptacle to their Seeds and Eggs for so we are taught to call the Seeds of Plants I shall not undertake to discuss Every body has heard of Van-Helmonts Ash-tree and may without much difficulty repeat what has been experimented by exquisitely weighing the Mould before and after a Gourd is planted in it and till it be grown to bulk and full maturity fed with water only how much liquor is insum'd and how little of the Earth consum'd to make some conjecture though I do not yet conceive the Earth to be altogether so dull and unactive as to afford no other aid to the Generation of what she bears the diversity of soils being as we have shew'd in this Discourse so infinitely various and the difference of invisible infusions so beyond our Arithmetic But if we give Liquids praedominion and at least the Masculine preference be they Salts or Spirits that is nitrous Spirits convey'd into her bosome how they will sure we are that Water and Vegetables are much nearer of alliance than either Water or Air are with the Earth and Mould But neither do I here also by any means exclude the Air nor deny its perpetual Commerce and benign influences charg'd as it comes with those pregnant and subtil particles which insinuating into the Earths more steady and less volatile Salts and both together invading the Sulphur and freeing them from whatsoever they find contumacious that intestine fermentation is begun and promoted which derives life and growth and motion to all that she produces That by the Air the most effete and elixiviated Mould comes to be repair'd and is qualified to attract the prolific nitrous spirits which not only disposes the Earth to this impregnating magnetism but converts her more unactive and fixed salts into quite another genius and nature the Learned Doctor Mayow has ingeniously Tract Medico-Phys Medico-Phys made out and all this by a naked exposure to the Air alone without which it produces nothing Nor can Plants totally excluded from the Air live or so much as erect themselves to any thriving purpose as being depriv'd of that breath and vital Balm which no less contributes to their growth and nourishment than does the Earth it self with all our assistances For that Plants do more than obscurely respire and exercise a kind of Peristaltic motion I little doubt from the wonderful and conspicuous attraction and emission which some of them discover particularly the Aloes and other Sedums and such as consisting of less cold and viscous parts send-forth their aromatic wafts at considerable distance Besides we find that Air is nearer of kin and affinity to Water than water is to Plants unless I should affirm that Air it self were but a thinner water for how else are those Vines and other Trees of prodigious growth maintained amongst the barren Rocks and thirsty Pumices where Rains but seldom fall if not from this rorid Air. Not to insist again that perhaps even these Rocks themselves may once have sprung from liquid Parents and how little even such as are expos'd to continual showers in other Climates abate of their magnitude since we rather find them to increase and that also the Fruits and Juices of Vegetables seem to be but the concretion of better concocted Water and may not only be converted into lignous and woody substance as the Learned Doctor Beale has somewhere instanc'd in a Discourse presented to You and Recorded in the Public Transactions but is apt enough to petrifie and become arrant stone Whatever then it be which the Earth contributes or whether it contain universally a Seminal virtue so specified by the Air Influences and Genius of the Clime as to make that a Cinnamon Tree in Ceilon which is but a Bay in England is past my skill to determine but 't is to be observ'd with no little wonder what Monsieur Bernier in his History of the Empire of the Mogol affirms to us of a Mountain there which being on one side of it intolerably hot produces Indian Plants and on the other as intemperately cold European and Vulgar Not here to pass without notice at least what even the most exhausted Mould will to all appearance produce spontaneously when once it has been well expos'd to the Air and heavenly influences if what springs up be not possibly from some volatil rudiments and seeds transported by winds higher than we usually place our Experiments unless we could fix them upon Olympus top But Porta tells us with more confidence that he took Earth from a most profound and dry place and expos'd it on such an eminence as to be out of reach even of the winds but it produc'd it seems only such Plants as grew about Naples and therefore may be suspected To return then again from this digression and pursue our Liquids where there is good Water there is commonly good Earth and vice versa because it bridles and tempers the Salts abates the acidity and fierceness of Spirits and imparts that usefull ligature and connexion to the Mould without which it were of no use for Vegetation In the mean time of all Waters that which descends from Heaven we find to be the richest and properest in our work as having been already meteoriz'd and circulated in that great digestory inrich'd and impregnated with astral influences from above at those propitious Seasons whence that saying Annus fructificat non Tell us has just Title to a Truth we every years Revolution behold and admire when the sweet Dews of Spring and Autumn hitherto constipated by cold or consumed with too much heat begin to be loosened or moderately condens'd by the more benign temper of the Air impregnating the prepared Earth to receive the Nitrous Spirits descending with their baulmy pearls yet with such difference of more or less benign as vapours haply which the Earth sends up may be sometimes qualified that nothing is more uncertain And this we easily observe from the Labours of the Industrious Bee and her precious Elixir when for some whole moneths she gathers little and at other times stives her waxen City with the harvest of a few propitious days But I am gone too far and therefore now shall set down only a few directions concerning watring and so dismiss the Subject and your patience 1. It is not good to water new-sown Seeds immediately as frequently we do and which commonly bursts them but to let them remain eight and forty hours in their beds till they be a little glutted with the natural juice of the Earth 2. Never give much water at one time for the surface of the Earth will often seem very dry when 't is wet enough beneath and then the Fibers rot about Autumn especially in Pots and Cases winter'd in the Green-house To be the more secure we have already caution'd Gardners to keep their bottoms hollow that nothing stagnate and fix too long which should be but transitory If such Curiosities
hands of the profoundest Philosopher since it requires a more than superficial knowledge and penetration into causes We know indeed that the Earth is without any Artificial Auxiliaries indu'd with a wonderful prolific virtue but this for being possible to be lost and decay at least for a longer time than our necessities can support and from some grounds never to be expected without such helps it may be worth our while a little to consider by what expedients of digestion or other wayes the desir'd effect of perpetuating its vigour might best be accomplish'd That the secret we enquire after and which does most apparently seem to evirtuate towards this end is some Salt I suppose is generally agreed For Salt it is which gives ligature weight and constitution to things and is the most manifest substance in all Artificial Composts 'T is the Salts which intice Roots to affect the upper and saline surface of the Earth upon which the Nitrous Rains and Dews descend and the cause that some Plants the most racy and charg'd with juice of all other for such is the Vine thrive so well amongst Rocks and Pumices and in whatever best maintains this vital pickle 'T is Salt which makes all cover'd and long shaded Earths to abound in fertility and renders the dung of Pigeons Poultry and other Salacious Corn-fed Birds so eminently effectual before the soil of Horses and other Beasts in which it less abounds as having less virtue to attract it 'T is Salt that gives such vigour to places sprinkl'd with urine Soot Ashes c. which have them not diluted and to Bones Flesh Horn Hair Feathers Blood and the rest of those animal excrements And whence those seminal Masses should proceed after Calcination of the Earth when it comes to be expos'd again is hard to divine whence I say they should derive their life and energy without being destroy'd by so powerful an agent as Fire unless they lurk in some vegetant and indissoluble salts volatile fixed or nitrous Earth from whence they Phoenix-like emerge though I do not say without any other specific rudiment But 't is strange what as I remember Dr. Morison affirms of the Erysimum or Irio so seldom seen to grow spontaneously in England before the late prodigious Conflagration of this City when there appear'd more of it amongst the Ruines than was known to grow in all Europe besides it being a curious Exotic to be found most about Naples in the time of Fabius Colonna and but rarely elsewhere 'T is Salt which resuscitates the dead and mortifi'd Earth when languishing and spent by our indulgence to her verdant Off-spring her vigour seems to be quite exhausted as appears by the rains and showers which gently melt into her bosome what we apply to it and for which cause all our Composts are so studiously made of substances which most ingender or attract it 'T is Salt which fertilizes and renders Aegypt so luxuriously fruitful after the inundations of Nile and the Nitrous grounds of Jamaica and other places which cause so stupendious a growth of Plants and Trees 'T is the want of Salt which emasculates the virtue of Seeds too long macerated in hungry water and renders floated wood such unprofitable fuel and to turn into such insipid ashes and whatsoever it be some Plants may appear to affect as to the external differences of appetite some of them seeming to draw in more Air some Earth and others Water in extraordinary measure according to the several contextures of their parts or by whatever Magnetisms and attractives it is still to come at their Salts which doubtless create that inclination compose the various saps and juices which they present us Nay what if I should say that all the several parts of Vegetables were endow'd with their peculiar and distinct Salts through different motions complications and percolations or that so many Earths so many kinds of Salts digested and transported by their different Vehicles and strainers and those also though unlike in quality yet perfectly congruous to what they produce and nourish But what this Vehicle or Menstrue is I contend not 't is evident that Salts unite best with water Vernal and Autumnal Showers and Dews as the most apt to convey their insinuations You know who have dignified Salt with the prerogative of being nam'd Element-earth the vigour and close of all things yea the first and last of Elementated bodies What shall I say quid Divinum the Original of all fecundity nor can I say less since there was nor sacrifice nor discourse acceptable without it And verily upon serious contemplation of the premises and the little experience I have had of their effects in this work of vegetation as far as I am able to penetrate into causes by them I am not displeas'd at the magnificent Epithets which are given it In the mean time I know there be who are so averse to this Doctrine as to prefer Water before it nor contend I with them so they allow the near affinity and friendship which is between them as I have deduc'd it at the entry of this Discourse where I describe my Autoptical observations of the several Earths all that I pretend from hence being only to excite us to make diligent enquiry what may more likely be the cause of Vegetation and whether Salt have not a Dominion almost Monarchical in this great Work of Nature being so absolute an ingredient in all our Dungs and Composts which I am next going to speak of I cannot in the mean time but wonder how a thing so eminently sacred and fertile should come to be the Symbol of Malediction when as the custom was they us'd to sow Salt on Cities they had curs'd there being in all Nature nothing so pregnant and fruitful unless it were to invite the Plow to go there and that the fertility of the spot for Corn and Grain might divert them from rebuilding and covering it again with houses Indeed to apply Salt in excess burns the Earth for a time so as nothing will grow upon it but when once the rains have well diluted it it springs up more wantonly than ever This I daily find by sifting common Salt upon the gravel-walks of my Garden and for which cause I have left it off and we find that the Earth it self over-marl'd and too highly manur'd is as unprofitable as if it were barren for the time and that there is in all things a just proportion to be observed But neither all this while do I pretend much less determine that the Principle I so much celebrate is our common artificial Salt compos'd of Urine and the like which of it self is so burning and destructive till its acidity be qualified by the air and showers from heaven which endows it with a natural magnetism to receive their irradiant virtues but a certain more unctuous spirit or airy Nitre pregnant with a vital Balm which is the thing we endeavour to find in these materials
growing in the Barbadoes which held six foot long five foot broad and three inches thick form'd and wrought as it stands upon the frame and his Royal Highness had another of a much larger dimension namely eighteen foot in length and nine in breadth cut out of the Stem which was of prodigious growth to be fed and nourish'd as it was between the barren Rocks But to proceed we find that most esculent and culinary Roots do rather chuse a rich natural and light Mould inclining to sand than what is forc'd or over-muck't and how much they yield to soil growing hard short and fibrous and contract the smell and relish of the ferments apply'd to accelerate their growth for according to the Italian Proverb Ogni pianta serba della sua radice Every Plant has a smack of the Root I have already mention'd so as to confide in Dungs as our vulgar Gardners about this City do is no incouragement and therefore some not without good reason prefer the Corn and Grain which is reap'd from Marle Chalk Lime and other more natural Manure before what is produc'd from a Crop which grows on a Dung-hill in comparison experience also shewing that the cause of smuttiness many times proceeds from the impurity and rankness of the dressing and therefore we omit to enumerate amongst our Soils Stercus humanum which howsoever preferr'd by some before all other and mention'd by Columella with that of Fowl and Cattel does unless exceedingly ventilated and air'd perniciously contaminate the odor of Flowers and is so evident in the Vine as nothing can reconcile it To give some instances of the nature of particular and simple Composts for so I take leave to use a Solecism till they are blended together with the rest as we shall afterwards shew what ever they be they are by no means fit for the Earth and use of the Husband-man unless besides their richness they be perfectly well digested made short sweet and almost reduc'd to a crumbling Mould so order'd as not only not to lose any of their virtue but improve it and to excite entertain and communicate heat and vegetative Spirits to what you shall apply them And that this is not done per se that is by immediate application without prejudice unless it be for the Hot-Bed which yet has an Intermedium of Mould experience tells us especially in the soil of Animals which is of all other the most active as consisting of Heterogeneous parts and repugnancies without which no fermentation could be obtain'd Now since many of these being freshly made are not only sensibly hot but mordacious and burning they are with caution to be us'd That every kind of Earth as well as the Dung of Beasts c. has its peculiar ferment and operates accordingly either by attracting something to it or embasing what approaches it sufficient has been said together with directions how to mingle and attemper it as best may qualifie it for Culture That we may do the like with the several sorts of Soil let us consider what their natures are what their correctives and how to apply them Horse-dung the least pinguid and fat of any taken as it falls being the most fiery excites to sudden fermentation above any wherefore as we said 't is then fit only for the Hot-Bed and when that fervour's past may be spread on fields where we would have a rank Grass to spring but is at no hand to be admitted into the Garden or where you desire good Roots should grow unless the ground be very cold or wet and then too it had need be well rotted lest instead of curing it it leave couch and pernicious weeds worse than the Disease the seeds of Hay and other Plants of which the Horses eat coming oftentimes intire from them And such vegetables do commonly spring up from the Soil of Cattel of which they chiefly eat as long knot-grass from this Beast short clean and sweet pasture from Sheep and Cows the Sonchus or Sow-thistle from the Swine So as ground muck'd with Horse-dung is alwayes the most infected of any and if it be not perfectly consum'd it makes your Roots grow forked fills them with worms and imparts to them an unpleasing relish but being laid on at the beginning of winter and turn'd-in at spring it succeeds sometimes with Pulse The Soil of Asses is highly esteemed for its being better digested by the long mastication and chewing of that dull Animal but since we have no quantity of it in this Country it does the less concern us Neats Dung of all other is universally the most harmless and the most useful excellent to mingle with sandy and hot grounds lean or dry and being apply'd before winter renders it the most like natural Earth and is therefore for the Garden and Orchard preferr'd to any other To use it therefore with the most certain success in such thirsty Grounds apply a plentiful surface of it so blended as the rain and showers may wash in the virtue of it throughly but this is best done by making the Dung the finer and then working it in at a soaking wet not stormy season and then leaving it also cover'd with it for some time if the rain descend in too great excess The next is Sheeps Dung which is of a middle temper between that and Pigeons profitable in cold Grounds and to impregnate liquors of choise use in the Garden The Dung of Swine is esteem'd the coldest and least acrimonious though some there be who contradict it and therefore to be apply'd to burning Lands but alwayes so early interr'd as never to appear above ground where it is apt to produce weeds in abundance from the greedy devouring of what it eats This though not so proper for the Garden is said yet to edulcorate and sweeten fruit so sensibly as to convert the bitterest Almond into sweet and therefore recommended above all others for experiments of change and alteration Some qualifie it with bran or chaff well consum'd greatly comfortable to Fruit-Trees but especially the hairs and bristles buried about the Roots of Pear-Trees Pigeons Dung and that of Poultry especially of Aquatic Fowls which is too fiery full of volatile salts is hot and burning and therefore most applicable to the coldest ground There is nothing so effectual to revive the weak and languishing Roots of Fruit-trees laid early to them but first be sure they pass their mordicant and piercing spirits and be discreetly mixt Very efficacious is this Dung to keep frost out of the Earth and therefore of great use to cover the Mould in Cases of Exotic and tender Plants but if the heat be not well qualified the very steam will kill them in a moment therefore let a full winter pass over this laetation for most uses The best way of preparing it is to reduce it into powder and mingle it with the Mould and to water with its infusion which alone does wonders or if it have been well expos'd
the bottom such as you take from the last years Hot-bed giving it a surface of under-turf which has been foder'd on sweet and air'd In this to plant your Roots but so as not to touch the Soil but rather let it lie about the Pasture-Earth in which your Bulbs should alwayes be planted For all dung'd Earths canker the roots of Flowers whilst their fibers reaching the heartier Mould draw from it without danger But if you would indeed be provided of excellent Earth to plant most Flowers in lay turf of Pasture-ground in heaps for two Winters till it be perfectly consum'd This is also admirable for Tuberous roots and indeed all up-land-mould whether Sandy or Loamy may be made perfectly good with Neats-dung laid on the surface about Michaelmas for one year that it may wash kindly in then in September after pare this turff off as thin as you can and for the first foot depth of Earth you have bedding for Bulbs and Tuberous Roots superiour to any other Another proper mixture much in esteem with our Gardners is hollow Willow Earth a fourth part sifted from the grosser sticks with almost an equal portion of Sheeps-dung Lauremberg says Goats is better with a little natural Mould and indeed this is excellent to raise any seedlings of Flowers but for the more minute and delicate such as Cypress Mulberie the Samera of Elme and the like prepare a Mould almost of powder gently refresh'd with a dewie sperge or brush not with the watring-pot which plainly gluts it Auricula Anemonies c. should be raised in the Willowmould describ'd above but planted forth where Neats-dung and Loam is sifted among the pasture Earth The Pine and bigger kernels make great advance by being coated with dung which being grown to great Trees abhor it Touching change of Crop something has been said already and Pease degenerate betimes at least in two or three years be the Land never so good so 't is observ'd that most Plants long standing in the same bed impair both the Ground and themselves especially Sorel To Conclude for a general good Garden-soil take the natural under-turff if it be not too stiff add to it a quarter part of Neat or Sheeps-dung perfectly consum'd one bushel of sleek'd lime to each load of Mould with some sweet though rotten Wood-pile or Willow-Earth mix it well together and you have a choice composition for all your rare Exotics Oranges and Case-shrubs remembring to place the sprag of rotten bavins hampers or baskets to keep the Mould loose with Lime-stone Brick-bats Shells and other rubbish at the bottom that the water may pass freely and not rot the fibers And therefore be careful never to make your Cases close below but rather so barr'd as to be able to keep the course materials from dropping through whilst auger-holes though never so thick boards are apt to be stop'd up and then your roots do certainly rot and your trees grow sick The same is to be observ'd in Pots and that you place them about an inch from ground that they may freely drain and as freely receive refreshing But I must not quit these curiosities to speak of the cooler Composts till I have describ'd the best Hot-bed that I know of Dig a Pit or Fosse hot-beddepth four foot is sufficient and of what figure and dimension you think will best entertain your furniture for it if it be twenty foot in length and ten foot broad I think it competent Line the sides with a wall of brick and half thick fill this pit with fresh soil from the stable trodden as other hot-beds are but without any Mould at the surface In this place Woodden-Cases made like Coffins but not contracted at the extreams nor lidded of what length and breadth you think best but not above a foot in depth let these be Dove-tail'd with woodden handles at each end to lift in and out and lastly boar'd full of auger-holes at the bottoms Your Cases thus fitted fill them with proper Mould such as you would sow Melon-seeds in or any other rare Seed and thus place them in your bed of dung The heat will pass kindly through the perforations and continue a cherishing warmth five times as long as by the common way of Hot-bed and prevent you the trouble of making new and fresh for the whole process of the Melon or what other of choicer Plants require more than one removal The heat of this bed continues eight or ten weeks without need of repairing and if it should 't is but casting in some fresh-made soil and littier beneath and about your Cases of which some you may glaze Cheveron-wise at the top and with spiracles or casements to refresh and give them Air and Sun at pleasure And these Beds where you cannot conveniently sink them for want of depth because of water you may build above ground as well and you may or may not extend a Tent over it to keep out Rain Wind and Sun according as you find occasion But thus have you a neat and useful hot-bed as I have been taught to make it by the Right Honourable the late Lord Vicount Mordant at Parsons-Green whose industry and knowledge in all hortulan Elegancies requires honourable mention And now at last I am come to set down the several wayes of preparing Composts of Dungs and those other ingredients we have mention'd and begin with the rudest as that which best accommodates to the grosser part of Husbandry which yet requires a special maturation and so descend to the more refin'd And these I distinguish into the moist the dry and the liquid for Irrigation But first here by the way greatly to be reproved is the heaping of a deal of indigested soil and other trash expos'd as commonly we find it to the heat of the Sun continual rains and drying winds as it lies in the wide field without the least coverture or shade by which means all the virtue is drawn forth and carried away leaving little more than a dry and inspid congestion of Caput Mortuum and perhaps a florid green Circle or Fairy-Dance at the bottom which the impregnated rains have inrich'd with what it has wash'd from the heap wherefore to prevent this and make one load of our prepared Soil worth ten of it Cut a square or oblong pit of thirty or forty foot in length at the least four foot in depth and ten foot over or of what dimensions you think will suffice to furnish you with store Let one of the sides or edges be made so sloping as to receive a Cart or Wheel-barrow to load and unload easily let the bottom and sides also be so well pav'd or laid with a bed of small Chalk Clay or the like that it may be capable of retaining water like a Cistern If to this you can commodiously direct any channels or gutters from your Stable and other sinks about the house it will be much the better The Pit thus prepar'd and under covert