And this hath given occasion to many, who have not taken pains to read him with diligence, or not being experienced in Operating, to reproach him for an obscure, yea, even for a false Writer, because they have made two or three Superficial, or Unskilful Trials of his Processes, which have not succeeded according to their Expectations; when indeed, the fault was in themselves, either in not perceiving the Author’s intention, or their own want of skill in rightly managing the Operation: And I know some Persons that sometime since said Glauber had been too dark in his Writings, who now think he hath wrote too plain.
But having mentioned this, I will here (for the sake of those Country Gentlemen, who have subscribed to this Work) a little Elucidate the Author’s Process about the inversion of Common Salt, with Lime, for the enriching of Poor and Barren Land. He indeed speaks of several Saline Preparations, which greatly promote the fertility of the Earth, but this with Common Salt, and Lime, is the cheapest of all, and also is most easie to be done, for any Plowman, or Labourer, having but once seen it done, may be presently able to manage it. The sum of it is, that Common Salt be turn’d from its sharpness, into an Alcalizate Nature (which is hot and fat) which then by its Magnetick force will attract from the Air a Vivyfying, Fructifying, Salt-nitrous power, and long retain it in the Earth, which is the cause of all Growth and Vegetation, as the Author sheweth in the Continuation of Miraculum Mundi, and many other places; but gives the Process of the preparation in plain and open words in the Appendix to the Fifth Part of the Prosperity of Germany, [page 416].
Neither is the practice of preparing either the Land, or the Seed, in order to the better Crop, altogether Novel, as may partly be seen in Virgil, Georgic Lib. 1. where he saith,
Semina vidi equidem multos medicare serentes,
Et Nitro prius, & nigra perfundere amurca;
Grandior ut fœtus siliquis fallacibus esset, &c.
Which in English may sound thus:
Some have I seen their Seeds to sow prepare,
With Nitre and Oyl-Lees, for they by care
Will grow far greater, and be sooner ripe, &c.