MAKCH.] PARING AND BURNING. 171 



It.mcrits experiment, to ascertain whether the effect 

 would not be the same with other aquatic woods. 

 PARING AND BURNING. 



This is the first month in which a farmer can 

 execute the burning part of this operation, upon 

 any large scale ; but if the north-east winds pre- 

 vail, which so much excel in the power of eva- 

 poration, and which often blow through the greater 

 part of this month, it may go on without inter- 

 ruption. The cases in which this management 

 ought to be embraced are so numerous, that the 

 man who reu-cls it cannot profit by many situations 

 and circumstances he may be in, without the ap- 

 plication of this admirable system. 



Before we come to the distinctions of soil, it 

 will be proper to offer some general observations, 

 on the diametrically opposite systems embraced by 

 such numbers of persons, on the general question, 

 whether this practice is excellent or worthless, as 

 two parties have decisively pronounced it. 



By one set it is pronounced, contrary to every 

 principle, that it is a wasteful, extravagant opera- 

 tion, which dissipates what should be retained ; 

 annihilates oils and mucilage ; calcines salts, and 

 reduces fertile organic matter into ashes of very 

 weak efficacy ; that the vegetable particles which 

 are brought into play at once, for the production 

 of a single crop, by less desperate management 

 might be husbanded to the support of many. On 

 the contrary, the advocates for this management 

 assert, that these objections are all founded on vain 



reason- 



