moot earth

English

Etymology

moot (“tree stump”) + earth (“soil”)

Noun

moot earth (uncountable)

1. (West Country) Soil taken from between the roots of a tree.
   • 1794, James MacPhail, “Of Manures, Earths &c”, in A Treatise on the Culture of the Cucumber‎^[1], pages 510–511:

     It is the nature of lime to attract oils, and dissolve vegetable bodies: Hence arise the good effects of lime in the improvement of black moorish land. Moot earth seems to consist of dissolved and half-dissolved vegetable substances, and it is said that lime assimilates the one, and dissolves the other.