MAncH. 179 



of the practice ad-rrt it, that by pr.ring and burn- 

 ing, you may command two or three good corn 

 crops in succession. The fact cannot b" denied; 

 for whether you examine the peat of the Cambridge- 

 shire fens, or the shallow chalk soils of the Downs 

 and Wolds of Hampshire, Gloucester, and the East 

 Riding, it is known that bad farmers do act thus 

 absurdly. They get great crops, but they too often 

 take them in succession, to the injurv of the soil, 

 though not to its ruin, unless that c: v n be esteemed 

 the ruin of land, which enable^ the tenant to pay 

 a double rent for it. Such farmers- have been in* 

 the habit of burning for wheat, and then taking 

 two crops of spring corn ; all good. N-n, I \\>.\e 

 known three good -A!, cat crops had in snccc^ 

 Now, it might be asked, how is it possible that 

 that husbandry can have all the philosophical evils 

 detailed above, of annihilation, dispersion, conver- 

 sion and destruction, which enables a- soil naturally 

 poor and weak, to give two or three good crops of 

 corn? Their argument evidently proves too much. 

 The effect shews, that there is a powerful cause or 

 agent in burning, which they do not understand ; 

 which escapes from the retort of the cheimst, and 

 from the rationale of the theorist. That opera- 

 tion or manure which will give a good crop of 

 wheat, will give a good crop of turnips or cabtjage ; 

 and he who, having made this commencement for 

 the food of sheep on the land, and knows not how 

 to go on, preserving the advantage he has gained, 

 is a tyro in the art of husbandry. The farmers that 



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