[8] When Writers of Husbandry, in discoursing of Earth and Vegetation, come nearest to the Thing, that is, the _Pasture_ of _Plants_, they are lost in the Shadow of it, and wander in a Wilderness of obscure Expressions, such as _Magnetism, Virtue, Power, Specific Quality, Certain Quality_, and the like; wherein there is no manner of Light for discovering the real Substance, but we are left by them more in the Dark to find it, than Roots are when they feed on it: And when a Man, no less sagacious than Mr. _Evelyn_, has trac’d it thro’ all the _Mazes_ of the _Occult Qualities_, and even up to the _Metaphysics_, he declares he cannot determine, whether the Thing he pursues be _Corporeal_ or _Spiritual_. The Ignorance of this seems to be one principal Cause, that Agriculture, the most necessary of all Arts, has been treated of by Authors more superficially than any other Art whatever. The Food or _Pabulum_ of Plants being prov’d to be Earth, where and whence[9] they take that, may properly be called their Pasture. [9] By the _Pasture_ is not meant the _Pabulum_ itself; but the _Superficies_ from whence the _Pabulum_ is taken by Roots. This Pasture I shall endeavour to describe. ’Tis the inner or (internal) Superficies[10] of the Earth; or which is the same thing, ’tis the Superficies of the Pores, Cavities, or Interstices of the divided Parts of the Earth, which are of two Sorts, viz. _Natural_ and _Artificial_. [10] This Pasture of Plants never having been mentioned or described by any Author that I know of, I am at a loss to find any other Term to describe it by, that may be synonymous, or equipollent to it: Therefore, for want of a better, I call it the inner, or internal Superficies of the Earth, to distinguish it from the outer or external Superficies, or Surface, whereon we tread. Inner or internal Superficies may be thought an absurd Expression, the Adjective expressing something within, and the Substantive seeming to express only what is without it; and indeed the Sense of the Expression is so; for the Vegetable Pasture is within the Earth, but without (or on the Outsides of) the divided Parts of the Earth. And, besides, Superficies must be joined with the Adjective Inner (or Internal) when ’tis used to describe the Inside of a thing that is hollow, as the Pores and Interstices of the Earth are. The Superficies, which is the Pasture of Plants, is not a bare Mathematical Superficies; for that is only imaginary. By Nature, the whole Earth (or Soil) is composed of Parts; and, if these had been in every Place absolutely joined, it would have been without Interstices or Pores, and would have had no internal Superficies, or Pasture for Plants: but since it is not so strictly dense[11], there must be Interstices at all those Places where the Parts remain separate and divided.