OF EARTH.

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and with the liquor remaining in your great cistern sprinkle the severalcomposts, and make them up for use, casting the coarse remaining stuff,which would not pafs the riddle, into the cistern again for farther mor-tification ; and so keep your pit filled with fresh materials from time totime after the same method: Others, in the mean time, lay theirseveral ingredients by themselves in some shady corner, which beingfrequently stirred, after two or three years thus mingle them at dis-cretion u .

There are some who advise us to suffer our mixture to remain till it bequite dry, after it is thus refined 3 and then, being beaten to dust, tostrew it upon the ground. And indeed this seems in Pliny ’s time to havebeen the custom 3 nor do I contradict it, provided you could water it, orwere sure of a shower before the sun had drank too deeply of the spiritand vigour of it, which, reduced in this manner, it does easily part with.

Now the reason of our thus treating composts of various soils and sub-stances, is not only to dulcify, sweeten, and free them from the noxiousqualities they otherwise retain, and consequently impart, when applied,as usually we find them, crude, undigested, and inactive ; but for beingimmoderately hot and burning, or else rank, and apter to engender ver-mine, weeds, and fungous excrefcences, than to produce wholesome plants,fruits, and roots, fit for the table, and grateful to the palate 3 for whicheffect it should be thoroughly concocted, aired, of a scent agreeable, andreduced to the next disposition of a sweet and natural earth, short andtractable, yet not so macerated as to lose any of its virtue. The properseason therefore for this work, is the beginning of the autumnal equinox,and wind westerly, both to prepare and lay it on your land, that, whe-ther it be of wet or dry consistence, it may have a gentle soaking into theearth. As for fresh dung, such as sheep make when they are folded, it

„ In large families a rich species of manure may be collected, by supplying the pits underthe necefsarie* with vegetable offal from the gardens, and fresh mould from the commons.We cannot pay too much attention to the formation of compost dunghills; for, withouttheir afsistanee, the utmost exertion of the plough and spade, will but little avail. In thisparticular the farmer should be scrupulously nice, and he should embrace every opportu-nity to improve his stock of dung.

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