AGRICULTURE WITH CHEMISTRY, 



application of each year's manure so subdivided, would 

 either be washed away, or its beneficial effefts lost, before 

 the further quantity necessary could, in a series of fifty 

 of a hundred years, be added to it. Hence a system of 

 under-dunging, or manuring land, may be said to be 

 nearly equal to no dunging at all : on which account the 

 preference, with great reason, has been given, under all 

 circumstances, to the ancient mode of cultivating the in- 

 field lands of Scotland, 



Folding in a proper manner, is particularly recom- 

 mended for fen lands and peat mosses, as the immediate 

 effect: produced by urine, is that of dissolving into muci- 

 laginous saponaceous matter the oxygenated peat. Indeed* 

 in all businesses, it is well known, that what is once well 

 done is not to do again. By this judicious mode of pro- 

 ceeding, the chemical qualities and mechanical arrange- 

 ment of the soil are so altered, that, without the grossest 

 mismanagement, it is impossible it should return again 

 to its former unproductive state. If this be properly at- 

 tended to, the pasture will never grow coarse, or require 

 breaking up, but will continue to improve the longer it 

 is suffered to remain in that state. There are other rea- 

 sons 



