The pastures of the vale of White Horse, sc. the first ascent below the plaines, are as rich a turfe as any in the kingdom of England: e. g. the Idovers at Dauntesey, of good note in Smithfield, which sends as fatt cattle to Smythfield as any place in this nation; as also Tytherton, Queenfield, Wroughton, Tokenham, Mudgelt, Lydyard Tregoz, and about Cricklad, are fatting grounds, the garden of Wiltshire. ___________________________________
In a little meadow called Mill-mead, belonging to the farme of Broad Chalke, is good peate, which in my father's time was digged and made use of; and no doubt it is to be found in many other places of this country, if it were search't after. But I name it onely to bring in a discovery that Sr Christopher Wren made of it, sc. that 'tis a vegetable, which was not known before. One of the pipes at Hampton Court being stop't, Sr Christopher commanded to have it opened (I think he say'd 'twas an earthen pipe), and they found it choak't with peate,* which consists of a coagmentation of small fibrous vegetables. These pipes were layd in Cardinal Wolsey's time, who built the house.
* I believe that in ye pipes was nothing else but Alga fontalis trichodes, (C. B.) which is often found in conduit pipes. See my Synopsis.-[JOHN RAY.]
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Earth growing. - In the court of Mrs. Sadler's, the great house in the close in Salisbury, the pitched causeway lay neglected in the late troubles, and not weeded: so at lengthe it became overgrown and lost: and I remember about 1656, goeing to pave it, they found,…. inches deep, a good pavement to their hands.
In the court of my honoured friend Edm. Wyld Esq., at Houghton in Bedfordshire, in twenty-four yeares, viz. from 1656 to 1680, the ground increased nine inches, only by rotting grasse upon grasse. 'Tis a rich soile, and reddish; worth xxs. per acre. ___________________________________
The spring after the conflagration at London all the ruines were overgrown with an herbe or two; but especially one with a yellow flower: and on the south side of St. Paul's Church it grew as thick as could be; nay, on the very top of the tower. The herbalists call it Ericolevis Neapolitana, small bank cresses of Naples; which plant Tho. Willis told me he knew before but in one place* about the towne; and that was at Battle Bridge by the Pindar of Wakefield, and that in no great quantity. [The Pindar of Wakefield is still a public-house, under the same sign, in Gray's Inn Road, in the parish of St. Pancras, London.- J. B.]
*It growes abundantly by ye waysides between London and Kensington.-
[J. RAY.]
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Sir John Danvers, of Chelsey, did assure me to his knowledge that my Lord Chancellor Bacon was wont to compound severall sorts of earths, digged up very deep, to produce severall sorts of plants. This he did in the garden at Yorke House, where he lived when he was Lord Chancellor. (See Sir Ken. Digby, concerning his composition of earth of severall places.)