180 PARING AND BURNING. 



self. In a letter to the editor of a paper, he says, 

 " If any persons who condemn paring and burn- 

 ing, should corne into Kent this summer (1795), 

 J can shew them several scores of acres of wheat, 

 barley, oats, and sainfoin, now growing on land 

 which has several times undergone that operation. 

 The crops of sufficient value to buy the land at 

 more than forty years purchase, at a fairly esti- 

 mated rent before the improvement." I humbly 

 presume, that Messrs. Kent, Claridge, and Pearccv, 

 the great enemies of paring and burning, will not 

 pronounce this land ruined by that execrable prac- 

 tice. 



Peat. This article is dispatched in few words. 

 Whatever variety of sentiments there are on this 

 method, for other soils, here there can be none. 

 The universal practice, from the flat fens of Cam- 

 bridge to the swelling bogs of Ireland, the moun- 

 tainous moors of the north of England, the rough 

 sedgy bottoms, in almost every part of the king- 

 dom, when they are broken up by men of real 

 praclicc and observation, are always done by paring 

 and burning. Registered experiments of doing it 

 by fallowing, are to be met with in various works. 

 The Board's Imports of the North Riding of York, 

 and of Somerset, detnil some ; others are to be 

 found in my Tours, and the result is cither loss, or 

 a profit so very inferior, that the cjuestion ought to 

 be considered as settled and done with. Let it 

 sleep for ever, except for the wrong-headed indi- 

 viduals who will, upon every question, arise in 



every 



