'216 IIORTILS G\!AMINEUS WOBURNENSIS. 



a'id under turnips, 1 barley or oats, 1 clover, 1 wheat, 1 tur- 

 nips, 1 barley or oats, and with this crop sainfoin sown 

 again = 22. In another part we are informed that sainfoin 

 is also a great improvement in thin, loose, dry, sandy loams, 

 upon marl or chalk bottoms. 



Thin soils that wear out, or tire of clover, are laid down to 

 great advantage with it, will last twenty years, and pay the 

 farmer as well as his best corn crops. 



It flowers about the middle and towards the end of June. 

 The seeds are large, and when sown in wet soils generally 

 burst and rot without vegetating. There is some difference of 

 opinion with respect to the best season for sowing ; accord- 

 ing to several trials that I have made, the middle or end of 

 April is the most certain; but when sown in the autumn, 

 unless the soil be favourable, many of the plants are lost 

 during the winter: should circumstances prove otherwise, 

 the autumn sowing will be found the most advantageous, as 

 it affords nearly a full crop in the ensuing season. 



It was before observed, that dry thin sandy pastures are 

 the least capable of improvement, from the defect in the 

 constitution of the soil, Avhich arises from the want of clay 

 and marl. The process of paring and burning, which is so 

 efficacious in converting bogs and rough tenacious clays, is 

 found to injure thin sands ; yet, without this process of burn- 

 Hig the surface, the crops that follow the ordniary mode of 

 breaking up such soils by the plough only are devoured 

 by insects at the roots, and seldom repay the expense of 

 labour. 



The comparative disadvantages which attend the ordinary 

 mode of con verting thin sandy pastures into tillage by plough- 

 ing only, are found by experience to be far greater than 

 those which result to the soil by the process of burning. Sir 

 Humphry Davy says, that " the process of burning renders 

 the soil less compact, less tenacious, and retentive of 

 moisture;" burning, therefore, increases the natural defects 

 of sandy soils, and lessens the quantity of soluble vegetable 

 niatlcr they contain. It seems probable, however, that the 

 process of burning may be conducted in such a manner as 

 to prevent any diminution of the original quantity of soluble 



