HOW TO GROW GOOD CLOVER. 139 



increased difficulty in growing clover on thin soils 

 will be found in the farmer discarding as antiquated 

 the practice of paring and burning, which was 

 formerly the usual preparation for the turnip crop. 

 In a paper on " Paring and Burning," in the 18th 

 volume of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society, Professor Voelcker remarks : — 



The ashes produced by paring and burning are especially useful to 

 turnips, and also to other green crops, because they contain a large 

 proportion of phosphates and potash — constituents which, it is well 

 known, favour in a high degree the luxuriant growth of root-crops. 



Further, the learned professor closes a most able 

 paper with the following conclusions : — 



Paring and burning, instead of being an antiquated operation, 

 is a practice the advantages of which are fully confirmed and explained 

 by modern chemical science. 



Paring and burning, to judge from our own expe- 

 rience, had the effect of converting some of the hard 

 limestone brash into lime, in which case it broke up 

 by the influences of air and rain, and so restored the 

 lime and alumina which mostly exist together in 

 limestone, the former of which is quickly lost in thin 

 soils, — so much so, indeed, that not unfrequently the 

 whole depth of soil, even upon a limestone, will often 

 be curiously devoid of lime, which is a necessary 

 ingredient in the constitution of a clover crop. 



Again, we should conclude that the operation under 

 discussion, from its decomposing that dark vegetable 

 matter called humus, which is always found in large 

 quantities on some of the soils which are called 

 "dead" from their inability to produce crops, and 

 which often cause astonishment that such black, 

 nice-looking earth should be unproductive. Now this 



