On the method of burning Mud or Clay. 115 



of ashes per acre. I have made an experiment of top 

 dressing meadow ground : the effect it produced was, 

 that the cattle turned into that meadow to graze, would 

 eat the grass of the part manured in this way perfectly- 

 bare, before they would touch any other part of the pas- 

 ture. I have this season about nine acres of wheat ma- 

 nured with mud ashes that promise well. In an adjoin- 

 ing farm, a fair experiment is now making by Mr. John 

 Woolston, who has manured with burnt mud about 

 three acres of land, and an equal quantity with stable ma- 

 nure : the remainder of the field is manured with lime, 

 fifty bushels to the acre. There is but little difference 

 visible in the parcels on which the burned mud and stable 

 manure have been put, but their superiority over that 

 which has been limed is very apparent. 



Very respectfully your friend, 



John Warner 

 C A. Rodney^ esq, 



[How importantly encouraging is the foregoing communica- 

 tion ! Mr. Warner merits the thanks of thousands who have 

 the like opportunities, and do not, though they yet may, em- 

 brace them. The blue mud of our marshes, if treated as Mr. 

 Warner has practised, is an invaluable treasure. But those 

 who have it at hand, are the most incredulous of its worth. 

 Very many of such characters possess clay soils, on which, 

 (though otherwise in sandy or light soils,) in its raw state, it is 

 feeble and inefficacious. A chemical analysis would convince 

 any intelligent and scientific person of this fact. A mere cover 

 of vegetable mould on a sub-stratum of clay, is not sufficient to 

 give the raw mud immediate activity ; nor is its mixture v/itli 

 farm-yard manure more profitable. But if the proprietors of 

 such soils, would burn the substrata of clay into ashes, in the 

 mode pointed out in our volumes and almanacs, or in the man- 

 ner detailed by Mr. Warner, they would not require blue mud, 

 or any other auxiliary to fertility. The use of dung has been 

 so long impressed upon our farmers, that they overlook the 

 treasures they possess in abundance, whilst they place their sole 



