EARTH-BURNING 



a v/eek or two, whether it rain or not, the heaps are ashes instead 

 of earth. The ashes are afterwards spread upon the ground ; 

 the ground is ploughed and sowed ; and this is regarded as the 

 very best preparation for a crop of turnips. 



201. This is called &quot;paring and burning.&quot; It was introduced 

 into England by the Romans, and it is strongly recommended in 

 the First Georgic of Virgil, in, as Mr. TULL shows, very fine 

 poetry, very bad philosophy, and still worse logic. It gives three 

 or four crops upon even poor land ; but, it ruins the land for an 

 age. Hence it is, that tenants, in England, are, in many cases, 

 restrained from paring and burning, especially towards the close 

 of their leases. It is the Roman husbandry, which has always 

 been followed, until within a century, by the French and English. 

 It is implicitly followed in France to this day ; as it is by the great 

 mass of common farmers in England. All the foolish country 

 sayings about Friday being an unlucky day to begin any thing fresh 

 upon ; about the noise of Geese foreboding bad weather ; about 

 the signs of the stars : about the influence of the moon on animals, 

 these, and scores of others, equally ridiculous and equally injurious 

 to true philosophy and religion, came from the Romans, and are 

 inculcated in those books, which pedants call &quot; classical,&quot; and 

 which are taught to &quot; young gentlemen &quot; at the universities and in 

 academies. Hence, too, the foolish notions of sailors about 

 Friday, which notions very often retard the operations of com 

 merce. I have known many a farmer, when his wheat was dead 

 ripe, put off the beginning of harvest from Thursday to Saturday, 

 in order to avoid Friday. The stars save hundreds of thousands 

 of lambs and pigs from sexual degradation at so early an age as the 

 operation would otherwise be performed upon them. These 

 heathen notions still prevail even in America as far as relates to 

 this matter. A neighbour of mine in Long Island, who was to 

 operate on some pigs and lambs for me, begged me to put the thing 

 off for a while ; for, that the Almanac told him, that the signs were, 

 just then, as unfavourable as possible. I begged him to proceed, 

 for that I set all stars at defiance. He very kindly complied, and 

 had the pleasure to see, that every pig and lamb did well. He was 

 surprized when I told him, that this mysterious matter was not 

 only a bit of priest-craft, but of heathen priest-craft, cherished by 

 priests of a more modern date, because it tended to bewilder the 

 senses and to keep the human mind in subjection. &quot; What a 

 &quot; thing it is, Mr. Wiggins,&quot; said I, &quot; that a cheat practised upon 

 &quot; the pagans of Italy, two or three thousand years ago, should, by 

 &quot; almanac-makers, be practised on a sensible farmer in America ! &quot; 

 If priests, instead of preaching so much about mysteries, were to 

 explain to their hearers the origin of cheats like this, one might 

 be ready to allow, that the wages paid to them were not wholly 

 thrown away. 



202. I make no apology for this digression ; for, if it have a 

 tendency to set the minds of only a few persons on the track of 



103 



