MARCH. 183 



of the stratum of clay next the soil so much, that 

 the roots of vegetables can afterwards feed therein, 

 for when the tnrf of a piece of land has been burnt 

 in heaps, at four or five yards apart, though all the 

 ashes be taken away, with some of the ^mli, and 

 spread over the other parts of the land, yet neither 

 corn nor turnips will grow so vigorously there, as 

 on those places that were only opened by heat." 



Loam. This is the soil, especially when goo:l, 

 upon which the practice has been most condemned; 

 but here we have some experiments to recur to, 

 which, in my estimation, set the matter in so clear 

 a light, that nothing more is necessary than to re- 

 cite them very shortly. Mr. Wilkcs, of Measham, 

 in Derbyshire, has for many years been in the 

 practice of ploughing old rough pastures (the soil 

 a stiffish loam), eight or nine inches deep, and 

 burning the whole furrow in heaps of thirty or 

 forty bushels each, the fires lighted by a few coals, 

 and coal slack ; the effect was very great, and the 

 improvement immense arid durable. Mr. Wilkes 

 is of opinion, from the experience of many years, 

 that even this burning, which is twenty times the 

 depth of common paring, does not waste the soil 

 in the least, but does no more than break the tex- 

 ture of stiff soils, expelling a great quantity of wa- 

 ter ; that by exposition to the atmosphere, the land 

 re-absorbs its water, and by the great immediate 

 fertility, fills itself presently with more vegetable 

 particles than it had before. Thirty years ago, his 

 father burnt, at Overseal, exactly in the manner de- 



N 4 scribed, 



