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•these plantations can afford that gain, the Brabant nurseries, and divers chaphome-plantations of industrious persons, are sufficient to convince the ''-•’“vgainsayer. And when, by this husbandry, a few Acorns shall have sup-,plied the neighbouring regions with young stocks and trees, the residuewill become groves, and copses of infinite delight and satisfaction to theplanters. Besides, we daily see what coarse lands will bear these stocks,(suppose them Oaks, Walnuts, Chesnuts, Pines, Fir, Ash, Wild Pears ,
Crabs, &c.) and some of them (as for instance, the Pear and the Fir, orPine) strike their roots through the roughest and most impenetrable rocksand clefts of stone itself 5 and others require not any rich or pinguid, butvery moderate soil; especially if committed to it in seeds, which alliesthem to their mother and nurse without renitency or regret: And thenconsidering what afsistances a little care in easing and stirring of theground about them, for a few years, does afford -them; what cannota strong plough, a winter mellowing, and summer heats, incorporatedwith the pregnant turf, or a slight afsistance of lime, loam, sand, rottencompost, discreetly mixed, (as the case may require,) perform even in themost unnatural and obstinate soil ? And in such places where antientlywoods have grown, but are now unkind to them, the fault is to bereformed by this care; and chiefly by a sedulous extirpation of the oldremainders of roots, and latent stumps, which, by their mustinefs, andother pernicious qualities, sour the ground, and poison the conception:
And herewith let me put in this note, that even an over-rich and pinguidcomposition is by no means the proper bed either for the seminary ornursery, whilst even the natural soil itself does frequently discover andpoint best to the particular species, though some are for all places alike ;nor should the earth be yet perpetually cropped with the same, or otherseeds, without due repose, but lie some time fallow to receive theinfluence of beg yenaccording to good husbandry. But I shall say no
1 The ingenious Dr. Priestley, in a paper presented to the Royal Society in 1772,on different kinds of air, among many interesting and important discoveries, proves to ademonstration that the putrid air arising from dunghills and the perspiration of animals, isnot only absorbed by vegetables, but also adds to their increase. Though this power invegetables was undoubtedly known long before the publication of the Doctor’s philoso-phical works, yet, so far as I know, we had not any correct experiments, before his time,in proof-of it. The world, therefore, is indebted to Dr. Priestley alone, for the expen.Volume /. k*