18 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



4 perches square, 40 per acre, and each heap is expected to con 

 tain three yards of ashes ; some in heaps, at 8 yards square, 

 at 75 per acre, and each heap is expected to contain two yards 

 of ashes. The whole of the ashes are spread, and the land fal 

 lowed in the usual way. It is repeated every four or six years, 

 as may suit the rotation of crops. It is an excellent preparation 

 for all kinds of corn, (wheat, barley, &c. ;) on the thin-skin land, 

 white turnips are grown well after burning ; it absorbs the 

 water ; the land dries earlier, and can be sown sooner in the 

 spring. The improvement on the crop amply pays for the out 

 lay, as well as leaving the land much better for the following 

 crops. Burning is a fertilizer of the soil, and the oftener it is 

 burned, the more it improves the staple and quality of the land ; 

 so far from destroying the soil, it acts greatly to its improvement, 

 and is highly conducive to the growth of the cultivated crops; 

 the effects may be seen more particularly in the clover.&quot; * 



Such are the accounts of practical farmers, on this important 

 process. Let us now hear what lessons science inculcates in 

 relation to the subject. 



Dr. Playfair, the learned consulting chemist to the Royal 

 Agricultural Society, says, 



&quot; By this process of paring and burning, injurious organic 

 matter is consumed. Plastic clays are quite changed in their 

 character, not only by having all their constituents brought into 

 contact with the oxygen of the atmosphere, and thus undergoing 

 change, but the clay itself acquires another character ; it becomes 

 absorbent, taking up from the atmosphere ammonia, carbonic 

 acid, and watery vapor, as well as affording more ready access 

 to the nutritious substances which may be dissolved in water. 

 But in this you see nothing is destroyed, and the inorganic 

 elements of the soil are only brought more fully into contact 

 with the absorbing organs of the plants.&quot; f 



We may next refer to the great agricultural oracle, Professor 

 Liebig, on this subject. 



* The advantage of manuring fields with burned clay, and 

 the -fertility of ferruginous soils, which have been considered as 

 facts so incomprehensible, may be explained in an equally simple 



* Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iv. part 1, p. 267. 

 f Lecture before the Royal Agricultural Society. 



