34^ On Paring and Burning. 



The foregoing number of hands is the usual complement ; at times 

 there will be occasion to employ some in addition for job-work. 



The due number of hands for Ihe intermediate farms of 1 50 and 

 200 acres, we take it for gi-antod the young farmer can calculate 

 from the above data. 



On the above noticed farm of 800 acres there are employed four 

 men and four lads in attendance on the bullock teams : four men 

 and one boy for the horses ; one head shepherd, with two men and 

 a boy to assist him ; one man to attend chaftcutter ; one man for 

 the nag-stable and liou^ehold jobs ; two men for hedging and ditch- 

 ing, so as to keep the fences in fair tenantable order ; four general 

 labourers; in all 19 hands. The swede-cleaning, &c., is dune per 

 acre by occasional hands ; and thei'e are extra men employed at 

 present for the draining, levelling of quarries, grubbing of hedge- 

 rows, straightening of fences, &o. ; and no farm could be better 

 managed than it is. 



The force of hands and implements you will notice does not rise 

 in exact proportion of the increased number of acres. Compara- 

 tively a small farm requires more hands and machinery than a large 

 one. On a large farm steam and horse power do much that is done 

 by manual labour on a smaller one. The above average of imple- 

 ments in general use is gathered from our own, and the practice of 

 the best farmers, in this a fair undiilating country. In a flat country 

 waggons may be dispensed with, carts with shifting harvest bodies 

 being substituted. Carts answer better in a flat country, being 

 (j[uicker, while 2 horses in carts some consider to do more than the 

 same 2 in a waggon. In a hilly country you must have Avaggons, on 

 account of the necessity of locking the wheels down the steeps. 

 The above estimate may vary too witli the number of homesteads 

 in the occupation of the farmer. 



XIII. — On Paring and Burning. By Dr. AUGUSTUS VoELCKER. 



Perhaps few agricultural operations, even long after they have 

 been practised with marked success in a district, can be said to 

 be so firmly established as to meet with universal approval. 

 There will, on the contrary, always be men who, in the face of 

 long and extended experience, will doubt the economy of certain 

 agricultural operations, or deny their accordance with sound 

 principles, or their consistency with modern improvements. 



Paring and burning, a practice carried out with much benefit 

 in various parts of England, and in none with better results than 

 on the Cotswold hills, has shared this general fate of many other 

 agricultural practices. Like deep drainage, subsoiling, autumn- 

 ploughing, deep cultivation, the application of artificial manures, 

 and other high-farming operations, paring and burning has been 

 the subject of lengthened discussion in our agricultural 



