Note 33 — CHAP. V. Of Tillage.

Land that is too hollow and light, having no Cement to join its Parts together, tho’ in Nature they are capable of infinite Division, yet in Practice the Plough cannot divide them to any Purpose, unless they were first join’d, but glides through without breaking them; being more like to the primary Particles of Water against the Plough, which are broken by no Force, than to Earth; it may be moved, but not broken by Tillage, and therefore ought not to be reputed arable; nor does it indeed deserve the Name of Land, but as the desart Sands of Lybia, to distinguish it from Sea.

[34]According to some, this Rule is only general, and not universal; for, say they, there’s a Sort of binding Gravel, that, when it is made fine, will, by a sudden Dash of Rain, run together like a Metal; and I have seen the same Accident in a particular Sort of white Land; but this very rarely happens to the latter: I never knew it above once, and that was after Barley was sown on it; the Hardness was only like a very thin Ice upon the Surface, which was some Hindrance to the coming up of the Barley, until the Harrow’s going over it once or twice broke that Ice or Crust, and then it came up very well.

I never had any other Sort of Land liable to this Misfortune: therefore can say nothing to the Gravel in that Case, nor how deep the Constipation may reach in it, nor what Remedy is most proper to prevent the ill Consequence of it: But if there should be two or three Exceptions out of One thousand Seventy-nine Millions One thousand and Sixty different Sorts of Earth (see Mr. Evelyn’s Terra, p. 2), ’twill be no great Matter.

But I think these are no real Exceptions against any Degree of Pulverizing; for it only shews, that some Sorts of Land, tho’ very few, are subject by Accident to lose too soon their Pulveration: And if the Fineness were no Benefit to that Land, such Loss of it would be no Injury to it.