ON PARING AND BURNING. 



PERHAPS few agricultural operations, even long after they have 

 been practised with marked success in a district, can be said to 

 be so firmly established as to meet with universal approval. 

 There will, on the contrary, always be men who, in the face of 

 long and extended experience, will doubt the economy of certain 

 agricultural operations, or deny their accordance with sound 

 principles, or their consistency with modern improvements. 



Paring and burning, a practice carried out with much benefit 

 in various parts of England, and in none with better results than 

 on the Cotswold hills, has shared this general fate of many other 

 agricultural practices. Like deep drainage, subsoiling, autumn- 

 ploughing, deep cultivation, the application of artificial manures, 

 and other high-farming operations, paring and burning has been 

 the subject of lengthened discussion in our agricultural 

 periodicals. On the one hand we possess the testimony of 

 trustworthy and acknowledged good farmers, who all speak very 

 favourably of this mode of raising produce ; on the other hand, 

 there are not wanting men of intelligence who advise agricul- 

 turists not to adopt paring and burning as a regular farm routine ; 

 and some men who go to the length of condemning this practice 

 unconditionally, as being wasteful and inconsistent with scientific 

 principles and good practice. We cannot feel surprised at such 

 great diversity of opinion if we bear in mind how difficult it is 

 with most men to discard preconceived theoretical views ; how 

 little, comparatively speaking, is known of the rationale of even 

 common farm practices ; how much more easy it is to give 

 vent to speculations than to establish a single fact ; and how few 

 men are capable of explaining in intelligible language the more 

 direct cause or causes of their success, and of the failure experi- 

 enced by others. Again, it is an undeniable fact that fixed rules 

 cannot be laid down in agriculture, of which it can be reasonably 

 expected that they will lead invariably to the same results ; for 

 it is self-evident that the very same operation which in one 

 locality perhaps has doubled the produce, may in another district 

 remain unattended with any benefit, or, under unfavourable cir- 

 cumstances, may even do harm instead of good. We must, 

 therefore, be prepared to meet with discussions on agricultural 

 matters, and to expect, it may be, plans, proved by long personal 

 experience, to be called in question, or even to be condemned or 

 ridiculed. 



In the absence of scientific principles and agriculture will 

 always more partake of the characters of a practice than of 



