Its fermenting Quality is chiefly owing to the Salts wherewith it abounds; but a very little of this Salt applied alone to a few Roots of almost any Plant, will (as, in my Mint Experiments, it is evident common Salt does) kill it. This proves, that its Use is not to nourish, but to dissolve; _i. e._ Divide the terrestrial Matter, which affords Nutriment to the Mouths of Vegetable Roots. It is, I suppose, upon the Account of the acrimonious fiery Nature of these Salts, that the Florists have banish’d Dung from their Flower-Gardens. And there is, I’m sure, much more Reason to prohibit the Use of Dung in the Kitchen-Garden, on Account of the ill Taste it gives to esculent Roots and Plants, especially such Dung as is made in great Towns. ’Tis a Wonder how delicate Palates can dispense with eating their own and their Beasts Ordure, but a little more putrefied and evaporated; together with all Sorts of Filth and Nastiness, a Tincture of which those Roots must unavoidably receive, that grow amongst it. Indeed I do not admire, that learned Palates, accustom’d to the _Goût_ of _Silphium_, _Garlick_, _la Chair venee_, and mortify’d Venison, equalling the Stench and Rankness of this Sort of City-Muck, should relish and approve of Plants that are fed and fatted by its immediate Contact. People who are so vulgarly nice, as to nauseate these modish Dainties, and whose squeamish Stomachs even abhor to receive the Food of Nobles, so little different from that wherewith they regale their richest Gardens, say that even the very Water, wherein a rich Garden Cabbage is boil’d, stinks; but that the Water, wherein a Cabbage from a poor undung’d Field is boil’d, has no Manner of unpleasant Savour; and that a Carrot, bred in a Dunghill, has none of that sweet Relish, which a Field-Carrot affords. There is a like Difference in all Roots, nourish’d with such different Diet. Dung not only spoils the fine Flavour of these our Eatables, but inquinates good Liquor. The dung’d Vineyards in _Languedoc_ produce nauseous Wine; from whence there is a Proverb in that Country, That poor People’s Wine is best, because they carry no Dung to their Vineyards. Dung is observ’d to give great Encouragement to the Production of Worms; and Carrots in the Garden are much worm-eaten, when those in the Field are free from Worms. Dung is the Putrefaction of Earth, after it has been alter’d by Vegetable or Animal Vessels. But if Dung be thoroughly ventilated and putrefy’d before it be spread on the Field (as I think all the Authors I have read direct) so much of its Salts will be spent in fermenting the Dung itself, that little of them will remain to ferment the Soil; and the Farmer who might dung One Acre in Twenty, by laying on his Dung whilst fully replete with vigorous Salts, may (if he follows these Writers Advice to a Nicety) be forced to content himself with dunging one Acre in an Hundred.