Selected quad for the lemma: water_n
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A38806
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A philosophical discourse of earth relating to the culture and improvement of it for vegetation, and the propagation of plants, &c. as it was presented to the Royal Society, April 29, 1675.
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Evelyn, John, 1620-1706.
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1676
(1676)
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Wing E3507; ESTC R21425
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50,232
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182
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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-salt and of Salt-Peter ana Another Take rain-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-salt and a little Oxes Gall c. Another Take quick Lime Sheeps dung at discretion put into 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
great advantage as we may see in divers places among the Downs of Suffex But it has a peculiar virtue above all this to improve other Lands as we shall come to shew I forbear to speak particularly of Fullers-Earth Tobacco-Clay and thâ— several fictile Clays because they are not so universal and serviceable to the Plow and Spade much less of Terra Lemnia Chia Melita Hetruria and the rest of the Sigillatae nor of the Bolus's Rubrics and Okers Figuline Stiptic Smegmatic c. as they are diversly qualified for several uses Medical and Mechanical but content my self with those I have already enumerated Now besides the Description and Characters we have given of these several Moulds and Earths as they reside in their several Beds and Couches there are divers other Indications by which we may discover their qualities and perfections as amongst other a most infallible one is its disposition to melt and crumble into fine morsels not turn to Mud and Mortar upon the descent of gentle showers how hard soever it seem before and if in stirring it rise rather in granules than massy Clods If excavating a Pit the Mould you exhaust more than fill it again Virgil tells us 't is good Augury upon which Laurembergius affirms that at Wittemberg in Germany where the Mould lies so close as it does not replenish the foss out of which it has been dug the Corn which is sown in that Country soon degenerates into Rye and what is still more remarkable that the Rye sown in Thuringia where the Earth is less compacted reverts after three Crops to be Wheat again My Lord Bacon directs to the observation of the Rain-bow where its extremity seems to rest as pointing to a more roscid and fertile Mould but this I conceive may be very fallacious it having two horns or bases which are ever opposite But the situation and declivity of the place is commonly a `more certain mark as what lyes under a Southern or South-East rising-ground But this is also eligible according to the purposes you would employ it for some Plants affecting hotter other colder exposures some delight to dwell on the Hills others in the Vallies and closer Seats and some again are indifferent to either but generally speaking most of them chuse the warm and more benign and the bottoms are universally fertile being the recipients of what the showers bring down to them from the Hills and more elevated parts Another infallible indication is the nature and floridness of the Plants which officiously it produces as where Thistles spontaneously thrive where the Oak grows tall and spreading and as the Plant is of kind so to prognostic for what Tillage Layer or other use the ground is proper Time Straw-berries Betony c. direct to Wood Camomile to a Mould disposed for Corn and I add to Hortulan furniture Burnet to Pasture Mallows to Roots and the like as my Lord Verulam and others observe On the contrary some ground there is so cold as naturally brings forth nothing but Gorse and Broom Holly Yew Juniper Ivy Box c. which may happily direct us to the planting of Pine Firs the Phillyreas Spanish Broom and other perennial verdures in such places Mosâ— Rushes WildTansy Sedge Flags Ferne Yarrow and where Plants appear wither'd or blasted shrubby and curl'd which are the effects of immoderate wet heat and cold interchangeably are natural auguries of a cursed Soil Thus as by the Plant we may conjecture of the Mould so by the Mould may we guess at the Plant The more herbaceous and tender springing from the gentle Bed the course and rougher Plants from the rude and churlish And as some Earths appear to be totally barren and some though not altogether so unfruitful yet wanting salacity to conceive vigour to produce and sensibly eluding all our pains so there is other which is perpetually pregnant and this is likewise a good prognostic Upon these and such like hints in proposals of transplanting Spices and other exotic rarities from either Indies the curious should be studious to procure of the natural Mould in which they grow and this might be effected to good proportion by the balasting of Ships either to plant or nourish them in from the Seed till they were of age and had gained some stability of roots and stem and become acquainted with the Genius of our Climate or for Essays of Mixtures to compose the like By the goodness richness hungriness and tincture of the Water straining through grounds and by the weight and sluggishness of it compared with the lighter conjecture also may be made as in part we have shewed To conclude there are almost none of our Senses but may of right pretend to give their verdict here and first By the Odour or Smell containing as my Lord Verulam affirms the juice of Vegetables already as it were concocted and prepared so as after long drowths upon the first rains good and natural Mould will emit a most agreeable scent and in some places as Alonso Barba a considerable Spanish Author testifies approaching the most ravishing perfumes as on the contrary if the ground be disposed to any Mineral or other ill quality sending forth Arsenical and very noxious steams as we find from our Marshes and Fenny-grounds By the Taste and that with good reason all Earths abounding more or less in their peculiar Salts as well as Plants some sweet and more grateful others bitter mordacious or astringent some flat and insipid all of them to be detected by percolation of untainted Water through them though there be who affirm that the best Earth like the best Water and Oyl has neither Odour nor Taste By the Touch if it be tenera fatty detersive and slippery or more asperous gritty porous and fryable likewise if it stick to the fingers like Bird-lime or melt and dissolve on the tongue like Butter Furthermore good and excellent Earth should be of the same constitution and not of contrary as soft and hard churlish and mild moist and dry not too unctuous nor too lean but resoluble and of a just and procreative temper combining into a light and easily crumbling Mould yet consistent and apt to be wrought and kneaded such as having a modicum of Loam naturally rising with it to entertain the moisture does neither defile the Fingers nor cleave much to the Spade which easily enters it and such as is usually found under the turf of Pasture-Grounds upon which Cattel have been long fed and foddered In a word that is the best Earth to all Senses which is blackish cuts like Butter sticks not obstinately but is short light breaking into small Clods is sweet will be temper'd without crusting or chapping in dry weather or as we say becoming Mortar in wet Lastly by the Sight from all the Instances of Colour and other visible Indications For the common opinion is though long since exploded by Columella that all hot and choleric grounds are red or brown cold and dry