IfS MARCH. 



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 

 reasoning and philosophical theory ; that practice 

 the most decided, and experience the most ex- 

 tended, pronounce it to be an admirable system : 

 and that the mischiefs often quoted as flowing 

 from it, are to be attributed merely to the abuse of 

 the method, and by no means necessarily connected 

 with it. 



I must without the least hesitation declare, that 

 the latter ,of these^ opinions is that to which I 

 subscribe. To trust to reasoning in matters of 

 agriculture, is a most dangerous reliance. I shall 

 leave others to detail their philosophical specula- 

 tions, and rest what I have to offer solely on the 

 practice, various and extensive, of numerous agri- 

 culturists, and on the common husbandry of many 

 spacious districts. 



These agree in declaring, and it is most parti- 

 cularly to be had in remembrance, for the enemies 



of 



