142 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENQLANU. 



the purpose. The straw is carried out and spread on the grass 

 lands from which clover hay had been cut the previous year. 

 Only a small proportion of the root crop is carried home for 

 consumption by cattle, the number of which, in these large 

 farms, is quite inconsiderable.&quot;* 



Sheep-folding, and paring and burning, are both processes 

 nearly unknown in America, and which will probably be ad 

 vantageously employed in some situations among us. 



Paring and burning. &quot;All soils,&quot; says Sir Humphrey 

 Davy, &quot; that contain too much dead vegetable fibre,&quot; (such as 

 the sour black soils of our reclaimed swamps,) &quot; and all such 

 as contain their earthy constituents in an impalpable state of 

 division, such as stiff clays and marls, are improved by burn- 

 ing&quot; It is therefore a common practice in the stiff-clay dis 

 tricts as well as upon the downs of England. In Suffolk, for 

 instance, it has been adapted with most successful results, the 

 effect being to render the heavy clay soil light, friable, porous, 

 and highly absorbent of gaseous matters. It increases the 

 efficiency of drains, (by letting water more rapidly into them,) 

 and, being more friable, the land works better and at less ex 

 pense. It further promotes vegetation by converting into 

 soluble matters available to plants, vegetable remains ;, which, 

 in consequence of the usually wet, impervious nature of the 

 soil, have become, as it were, indigestible, and therefore inert 

 and useless. It is also advocated as being destructive of the 

 roots and seeds of weeds ; of insects, their larvse and eggs ; 

 and, as is pretty clearly demonstrated, it enables land to 

 bear the same crop in quicker succession, by its supposed 

 effect upon the exudations left by former crops.f In execu 

 ting the process, the surface, generally to the depth of three 

 inches, is ploughed or pared up (there are instruments made 



* CAIRO. 



t Report by practical farmers in Suffolk, 1846. 



