10 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



cases, almost buy the fee simple of lands in the United States, 

 lands much more fertile, and, in the old and settled parts of the 

 country, subdued, well fenced, and with good buildings. Where 

 land now is waste, and produces little or nothing, it is obvious 

 that it would be wiser to expend a sum equal to what would be 

 the full value of the land after its improvement, than to suffer it 

 to remain wholly unproductive ; such improvements may, in 

 fact, be considered as creating so much land, as adding so much 

 productive land to an estate. In the United States, where land 

 is abundant and cheap, such expensive improvements, unless on 

 a small scale, and in some most favored localities, cannot be 

 recommended. It would be wiser to abandon land so worthless, 

 and have recourse to better soils, which are easily accessible for 

 prices vastly less than the expense of such improvements. 



The process of burning land, of which I am speaking, is ap 

 plicable only to stiff, clay soils. The objects of it are, first, to 

 render it friable, and destroy its adhesiveness, and the second is 

 to create a supply of manure in the ashes of the soil thus burned. 

 The first I can understand : the second seems more difficult of 

 credence. 



The process consists in digging, either with a plough or spade, 

 the whole top-soil of a field, and placing it in small heaps, with 

 a furnace or oven under them, where a fire of coal, or fagots, or 

 brushwood may be kindled, and continue to burn until the 

 whole pile is, properly speaking, reduced to an ash-heap, as far 

 as the nature of the substance so reduced admits of being so 

 designated. Where I have seen the process carried on, the depth 

 of soil so dug and burned did not much exceed a foot ; but I have 

 been made acquainted with one experiment, where the depth so 

 moved and reduced was three feet. Those of my readers who 

 are fond of mathematical calculations may amuse themselves 

 with calculating the gross number of tons of earth which, on a 

 single acre, must be moved in such an operation ; and I think 

 they will be surprised at the result. I know of scarcely any 

 thing like it, except in the case of the old man in the fable, who 

 bequeathed to his two sons a valuable treasure buried in the 

 field, for which they were to dig. Whether avarice or curiosity 

 prompted them in the case to go deeper than this, and to accom 

 plish a more Herculean task than this, we are not informed. 



In one case, which I saw, the pieces of clay were baked 



