Paes: 
And, perhaps, no one object under enquiry, in 
the agriculture of South-Wiltfhire, will be thought 
of fo much real confequence by the landholders 
thereof. 
Paring and burning land, or, as it is called in 
Wiltfhire, ‘ burnbeaking,” though by fome fup- 
pofed to be a new mode of hufbandry, is perhaps, 
coeval with, if not more ancient than ploughing. 
When land was to be reclaimed from a ftate of 
wood land, as great part of this rfland undoubtedly 
originally was, manual labour was alone ot 
to the purpofe. 
The wood was cut off, the principal parts of the 
roots grubbed, and then the rough grafs and mofs, 
and the whole furface of the land, were chopped up 
with a curved cutting mattock, and burnt to afhes, 
and thus the land was prepared for fowing. This 
mattock was called a deak, and the operation was 
therefore, and is ftill frequently, called “ deaking and 
“ burning.’ Perhapsno method could be better 
fuited to the original purpofe of cleaning rough, 
incumbered land, in which it was almoft impoffible 
for horfes or oxen to work a plough, than this ope- 
ration of beaking. And the action of the fire not 
only confumed the roots and weeds, and other in- 
cumbrances, but corrected the acidity of the foil, 
and rendered it fit for the production of corn. 
The operation not only anfwering the purpofe of 
gleaning the land detter and cheaper than it could 
have 
