Chap. VIII. O F M A N U R E S. 43 



" workmen who were building about our houfe, cut pieces of this 

 *♦ ftone upon a grafs plot. When they had done their work, the 

 " rubbifli was cleared away, and nothing left upon the grafs but the 

 " dull and very fmall fragments which had fallen from the ftones 

 ** in cutting them. The next year, tlie grafs grew furpriiingly 

 " thick in all the places where thefe flones had been cut, was much 

 " taller and greener than any where elfe, and preferved its vigour 

 •' for feveral years. One would fcarce have thought that fo hard a 

 •♦ ftone, reduced to powder, would have produced an efFedt like 

 " that of marie. The goodnefs of lime, as a manure, is, perhaps, 

 " chiefly owing to the finenefs of the powder to which the lime- 

 " ftones are reduced by calcination." 



Burning, or, as fome call it, biirn-beaking of land, may be 

 reckoned among manures, becaufe it is a very great improvement, 

 and only pradrifed upon fome old pafture, or heathy, rufhy, broomy, 

 and fuch like barren grounds, which are confiderably enriched by it ; 

 though, as the a\ithor of the New Syjiem of Agriculture juftly re- 

 marks, lands fo improved are, for want of one obfervation, generally 

 ruined, in the common pradlice of plowing them three or four crops 

 fucceffively J by which means their whole fertility is moft affuredly 

 exhaufted, and the foil becomes incapable of vegetation, though af- 

 f.fted by the richeft dung, or other manure, in the world. Nothing 

 but ten or fifteen years repofe, will reftore the abufed vigour of 

 nature ; whereas, were thefe grounds ftrengthened by a little marie, 

 chalk, or dung, between their firft harveft and their fecond feeding, 

 the improvement would be moft complete and lafting. No method 

 would be more eafy ; nothing polUbly more advantageous. 



The manner of burning land is generally known to be a paring 

 off the fibrous turf, to a confiderable depth, in a hot feafon, which 

 being made into little hills, rais'd hoHov/, and at equal diftances, 

 are fet on fire, as fcon as they are dry enough to kindle, and fo 

 burnt to a kind of red aflies, and thofe allies fcatterd over the 

 whole furface : the ground is then plowed, up very Ihallow, and the 

 feed immediately fown. 



This burniiig of ground is very coftly, and not a little tedious, 

 becaufe the turf is raifed in a laborious manner, by the force of a 

 mar.'s arms and bofom, pulhi^g againft a thing t'.ey call a breajl- 

 plow. — I will prefeiit you, continues our author, with a much 

 neater invention, and which faves, at leaft, two thirds of the 

 charge. 



G 2 Let 



