c

A DISCOURSE

not to be rejected; the loosenefs of it admitting the refreshment ofshowers, renders it not improper for trees and plants which require morethan ordinary moisture. Declining from this in perfection, is the darkishgrey or tawny, which, the deeper your mine, rises veined with yellow,and sometimes reddish, till it end in pale j and if you penetrate yet farther,commonly in sand and gritty stone.

Of a second clafs, is Mould of an obscure colour also, more delicategrain, tender, chefsom and mellow; clear of stones and grittinefs, withan eye of loam and sand, which renders it light enough, yet moist ; ofall other the most desirable for flowers and the coronary garden.

To this we add a yet more obscure and sandy Mould , accompaniedwith a natural fatnefs ; and this, though rarer, is incomparable for allsorts of fruit-trees.

A third participates of both the former; fattish, yet interspersed withsmall flints and pebbles, not to be altogether neglected.

V

A fourth is totally sandy, and that of divers colours, with sometimes a'bottom of gravel, now and then rock, and not seldom clay; and, as thefoundations are, so it is more or lefs retentive of moisture, and tolerablefor culture; but all sand does easily admit of heat and moisture, and yetfor that not much the better; for either it dismifses and lets them pafstoo soon, and so contracts no ligature, or retains them too long, especiallywhere the bottom is of clay, by which it parches, or chills, producingnothing but mofs, and disposes to cankerous infirmities; but if, as some-times it fortunes, that the sand have a surface of more genial Mould ,and a bottom of gravel or loose stone, though it do not long maintain thevirtue it receives from heaven, yet it produces forward-springing, and isparent of sweet grafs, which, though soon burnt up in dry weather, doesas soon recover with the first rain that falls.

Of pure and sheer sand there is white, black, bluish, red, yellow,harsher and milder, and some mere dust in appearance, none of them tobe desired alone; but the grey-black and ash-coloured, and that whichfrequently is found in heathy commons, or the travelling kind, volatile,and exceedingly light, is the most insipid and worst of all. I do not here