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* Munt.JVaare Offe-ring der Plan-ter. Lib. i.Cap. ;<s, Lc<5> ©V.

A Thilbfophicdl Discourse

For the Earth, especially if fresh, has a certain Magnetism in it, bywhich it attracts the Salt , Power or Virtue (call it either) whichgives it Life, and is the reason of all the Labour and Stir we .keepabout it, to sustain us; all Dungings , and other sordid Temperings,being but the Vicars luccedaneous to this Improvement, which of allother, makes its Return of Fruit, or whatsoever else it bears, withoutimparting any of thole ill and pernicious Qualities, which we sensiblydifcover from forced Grounds; and that not only in the Tknt 5which they produce, but in the very Animals which they feed andnourish.

I know, Laurembergius ( somewhere) denies this, and that Aft*"mals in preparing Chyle , transmute, alter, and insume what is onlytheir proper Aliment, rejecting all that is superfluous ; but as our earlyAsparagus , Colly flowers, and divers Roots, manifestly refute it, ^does the Taste of the Flesh, and Milk o i.^Cattle, especially Fowhthat feed on the wild Garlick, Fenny-grass, and other rank and putridThings; not here to insist on their sweet, and delicate Relish up° ntheir change of Food, or more odoriferous Pasture. But to the Ex-periment.

Take of the most barren Earth you can find, drain’d, if you pleasoof all its Nitrous Salts, and Masculine Parts; reduce it to a 6 nePowder, ( which may be done even in large Proportion, by a ruckEngine, letting fall a kind of Hammer or Beetle, at the Motion of 3Wheel; ) let this pulverized Earth, and for the Time uncessantlytat ed, be expos’d for a Summer and IVint er, to the Vicissitudes auChanges of the Seasons, and Influences of Heaven : By this LaboVyand Reft from Vegetation, you will find it will have obtain'd such 3generous and masculine Pregnancy, within that Period, as to ,

good your highest Expectations: And to this belongs Sir HughContrition, or Philosophical grinding of Earth ; which upon thisposure alone, without manure of Soil, aster the like Revolution 0Time, will, as he affirms, be able to receive an exotic Plant front t' 1farthest Indies, and cause all Vegetables to prosper in the most exast etDegree; and, to speak magnificently with that industrious Man, j?bear their Fruit as kindly with us, as they do in their natural C 11 'mates ; and as Dr. * Munting pretends to have done in Holland. ^a little to abate of this, modestly we may lay, that this Culture (and simple as it is) will be found effectually able to render the Sona most extensive Capacity, for the Entertainment of foreign andcommon Plants. For to enumerate some of its Perfections; lu ch ^refuse Dung, and violent Applications, have here pure Earth,such as require Aid, a mellow and rich Mould, impregnated with ^the Blessings which the Influences of the Heaven, and Ejflorefl etlce ithe Earth can contribute to it; fitted, as it is, for Generation, a .

Seeds "tuch

yet

Earth can contribute

so restrain’d from it, as greedily to receive the first

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are committed to it, with a Passion and Fervency as it were ot j

t _ Tin ... _i this.

Love. What high and sublime Things are spoken more upon p a .forbear to prosecute; but in Sir Ketielm Digbfs Discourse or A/ lC ,thetic Tow der, he affirms, that the Earth in the Years of H e P° r <^covers its Vigor, by the Attraction of the vital Spirits, wh'L 1ceives from the Air, and those superior Irradiations, which , . ^simple Earth with Qualities promoting Fermentation. An 1 0 fsuch a vegetative Activity I have often observ’d in the bare expo

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