188 AGRICULTURAL ESSAYS. 



er or when the dew is on. Let this be repeated, the oftener 

 the better. This of itself, has been found to have brought into 

 operation the vegetable principle.* 



Gypsum, it is believed when spread on such lands as a top- 

 dressing has been generally found efficacious to the growth of 

 crops, in bringing into operation the vegetable principle, and 

 often to become a substitute, in some degree, for the actual 

 seeding with clover. 



In common seasons some of the means above mentioned, it is 

 believed, will be foun(J efficacious in bringing such barren lands 

 into a condition to bear a green crop. 



If the soil can be prepared suitably in the spring so that a crop 

 of spring or winter rye might be early sown, its fertility would be 

 greatly increased by seeding it with either of those kinds of grain, 

 and turning it under with tlie plough ; say justbefore it heads. If 

 some of the first green crops are not ploughed under, the farmer 

 must, if he would increase, or even continue the fertility which he 

 has thus effected, be careful to return all the straw, of whatever 

 nature, which he carries off, for the purpose of manure, and 

 the stubble which may remain after harvest, by being burnt on 

 the land would add much to its fertility. This should be an 

 invariable practice with all tillage lands, to restore to them the 

 whole amount of the crop except the seed. It would not be 

 best to attempt to take a summer crop of any culmiferous or 

 legumenous kind as preparatory to a winter crop, until the land 

 had become somewhat permanently fertilized. 



When sandy, plain land is not entirely barren, but produc«B 

 only some useless vegetable : paring and burning will produce 

 fertility ; that is, paring the surface to the deepness of one, two 

 or three inches, gathering it into heaps and burning it, and 

 spreading the ashes as manure, on the soil that remains. This 

 is done in different ways, as has been thought expedient by 

 different cultivators. Perhaps it might as well be cut up with 

 a shallow furrow of the depth intended for burning, and after 

 lying a few days to dry, scraped together in small heaps. This 

 has been long practiced in Great-Britain, and many other coun- 

 tries ; and been considered by many, as the most, advantagous 

 way of bringing in and improving, not only pine plain lands, 

 but all soils, where the surface carried a coarse sward, and was 

 , composed of peat earth, or other inactive substances ; being 

 viewed as the best way of bringing them into action ; the ashes 



♦ Sec essay on improving land by plougbiag. 



