26 On Paring and Burning. 



larger amount of those fertilising constituents, which are espe- 

 cially useful to root-crops, than a heavy dressing of farmyard- 

 manure, guano, superphosphate, or other artificial manures ; and 

 as the expense of procuring the ashes is certainly much less 

 than that of even a moderate manuring, paring and burning must be 

 considered decidedly an economical agricultural operation. Thus 

 it has been shown that the bone materials contained in the ashes 

 of an acre of land are equivalent to about 20 bushels of bone- 

 dust, worth at the present time about 21. 10s. Assuming the 

 rest of the fertilising matters in the ashes to be worth only 10s., 

 which is a very low estimate, their total value in fertilising mat- 

 ters will be at least 37. per acre. In this estimate no account 

 is taken of the mechanical improvement of the land, of the 

 uniform distribution of the manuring agents, and the advantages 

 of paring and burning as a most efficient cleaning operation. 



In the next place, I would remind the reader that most of the 

 soils upon which paring and burning is practised with marked 

 benefit are so impervious that, for want of necessary atmospheric 

 air, the organic remains of former crops largely accumulate in the 

 soil. This inert vegetable matter appears to be injurious to 

 vegetation, or implies, at any rate, an unfavourable condition of 

 the land, which has first to be amended before anything else can 

 be done with it with effect. In our present state of knowledge no 

 available means afford so efficient and cheap a remedy against 

 this evil. There are no doubt soils which can be brought 

 round by other means, but I question whether these means 

 would be available on the thin, poor, brashy soils on the Cots- 

 wold Hills. 



Lastly, it may be stated that artificial manures, such as guano 

 and superphosphate, and even farmyard-manure, produce hardly 

 any effect upon turnips when applied to land which is in a raw 

 unprepared state. In proof of this assertion I may mention that 

 two years ago I tried small and large doses of good superphos- 

 phate upon land which evidently was not properly pulverized, 

 and did not get a single cwt. the acre more turnips from the 

 manured plots than from those which were left unmanured. A 

 more efficient operation can hardly be conceived than paring 

 and burning for increasing the porosity of a soil and thoroughly 

 pulverizing a large proportion of it. As a mechanical improve- 

 ment it is therefore invaluable. 



Soils well adapted for burning, we here see, contain invariably 

 a large proportion of clay, from which, on burning, potash is 

 liberated. And as the effect of potash appears to be similar to 

 that of ammonia, viz. to favour the development of leaves, it 

 is not necessary to apply ammoniacal manuring constituents to 

 soils that have been pared and burned. Indeed, I am inclined 



