EARTH-BURNING 



detecting the cheatery of priests, the room which it occupies will 

 have been well bestowed. 



203. To return to paring and burning : the reader will see with 

 what ease it might be done in America, where the sun would do 

 more than half the work. Besides the paring might be done with 

 the plough. A sharp shear, going shallow, could do the thing 

 perfectly well. Cutting across would make the sward into turfs. 



204. So much for paring and burning. But, what I recommend 

 is, not to burn the land which is to be cultivated, but other earth, 

 for the purpose of getting ashes to be brought on the land. And 

 this operation, I perform thus : I make a circle, or an oblong 

 square. I cut sods and build a wall all round, three feet thick 

 and four feet high. I then light a fire in the middle with straw, 

 dry sticks, boughs, or such like matter. I go on making this fire 

 larger and larger till it extends over the whole of the bottom of the 

 pit, or kiln. I put on roots of trees or any rubbish wood, till there 

 be a good thickness of strong coals. I then put on the driest of 

 the clods that I have ploughed up round about so as to cover all 

 the fire over. The earth thus put ih will burn. You will see 

 the smoke coming out at little places here and there. Put more 

 clods wherever the smoke appears. Keep on thus for a day or 

 two. By this time a great mass of fire will be in the inside. And 

 now you may dig out the clay, or earth, any where round the kiln, 

 and fling it on without ceremony, always taking care to keep in the 

 smoke : for, if you suffer that to continue coming out at any one 

 place, a hole will soon be made ; the main force of the fire will 

 draw to that hole ; a blaze, like that of a volcano will come out, 

 and the fire will be extinguished. 



205. A very good way, is, to put your finger into the top of the 

 heap here and there ; and if you find the fire very near, throw on 

 more earth. Not too much at a time : for that weighs too heavily 

 on the fire, and keeps it back ; and, at first, will put it partially 

 out. You keep on thus augmenting the kiln, till you get to the 

 top of the walls, and then you may, if you like, raise the walls, 

 and still go on. No rain will affect the fire when once it is become 

 strong. 



206. The principle is to keep out air, whether at the top or the 

 sides, and this you are sure to do, if you keep in the smoke. I 

 burnt, this last summer, about thirty waggon loads in one round 

 kiln, and never saw the smoke at all after the first four days. I 

 put in my finger to try whether the fire was near the top ; and 

 when I found it approaching, I put on more earth. Never was a 

 kiln more completely burnt. 



207. Now, this may be done on the skirt of any wood, where 

 the matters are all at hand. This mode is far preferable to the 

 above-ground burning in heaps. Because, in the first place, there 

 the materials must be turf, and dry turf ; and, in the next place, 

 the smoke escapes there, which is the finest part of burnt matter. 

 Soot, we know well, is more powerful than ashes ; and, soot is 



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