PARING AND BURNING. 213 



original mode of paring and burning, and which forty 

 years ago was so common in Europe, is still fol- 

 lowed in many places in England, where the paring, 

 from the operation, is called push ploughing. It has 

 been more often given up, from the excessive crops 

 it has produced, exhausting the soil, than any in- 

 herent sin in the practice itself. Instead of paring 

 and burning, it should rather be called paring and 

 roasting. The process should never go beyond a 

 good scorching. The effects of scorching insolu- 

 ble geine, and inert vegetable fibre, may be illustra- 

 ted by reference to the effects of roasting coffee or 

 rye. A tough green berry, or dry seed, which is 

 quite insoluble, is made by this process very soluble. 

 Toasting bread, has a like effect, and so has baking, 

 on the dough. Though in roasting coffee, a large 

 portion of charcoal seems to be made, yet in the 

 grounds of coffee, vegetable fibre is in that state, in 

 which air and moisture act, as they do on the geine of 

 soils, converting the insoluble into soluble. If ever 

 decided good effects have been witnessed from the 

 application of charcoal, independent of rain water, 

 they are due to the cause here pointed out. 



288. Turning in green crops, is returning only 

 to the soil, the salts, silicates and geine, which the 

 plant has drawn out of it, together with all the or- 



