520 SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE. Part II. 



3204. Rippling is the operation of separating the boles or seed-pods of flax and hemp 

 * by striking in the manner of whipping, or more commonly by drawing them through 



an implement of the comb kind, constructed with several upright triangular prongs set 

 near together in a strong piece of wood. 



3205. Hedging and ditching, the operation of making and mending fences and open 

 water-courses of the different kinds already enumerated, consists of the combined 

 application of digging, shovelhng, cutting, clipping, and faggoting, described in this 

 section and the two foregoing. 



3206. Faggoting is a term applied to the dressing or binding of the prunings or 

 superfluous branches and spray of hedges. The bundles are made of different sizes in 

 different parts of the country, and in the same place according to the purpose to which 

 they are to be applied. They are tied with willow, hazel, or some other pliable wood, 

 twisted before application. 



3207. Stacking wood for fuel occurs in the practice of common agriculture when 

 hedges and pollard trees or tree-roots are stocked or dug up. The wood, whether roots 

 or trunk, is cut into lengths of from eighteen inches to two feet with a saw, then split 

 with iron wedges into pieces of not more than an inch and a half, or two inches in 

 diameter, and built into an oblong stack generally three feet broad and high, and six 

 feet long. 



3208. Stacking wood for burning, stemng for tar or pyrolignous acid, charring, and 

 similar purposes, are peculiar to forest culture, and will be treated of in the proper place. 

 (See Part III. or Index.) 



3209. Paring and burning is the process of paring off* the surface of lands in a 

 state of grass, in order to prepare them for arable culture by means of fire. In the 

 method of performing the process there is some slight difference in different districts, 

 and an attention to the nature of the lands is as necessary as in other husbandry oper- 

 ations. It would seem that some soils, as those of the more clayey and heavy kinds, 

 would be most benefited by having the fire as much as possible in contact with the whole 

 of their superficial parts, without being carried too far, as by that means they may be 

 rendered more proper for the reception of the roots of vegetables after being slightly 

 ploughed, as well as more suitable for supplying nourishment to them ; while in others, 

 as those of the more light and thin description, it might be most advantageous merely 

 to consume the thin paring of sward after being piled up for the purpose, without per- 

 mitting the fire to exert its influence upon the mould or soil immediately below, as in 

 this way there would not probably be so much danger of injuring the staple by destroy- 

 ing the vegetable matters contained in such soils. Of course, in the first of these modes 

 of burning the sward, the sods or parings should be piled up as little as possible into 

 heaps, the advantage of a suitable season being taken to apply the fire to them in the 

 state in which they lie or are set at first after being cut up, or after a few only have been 

 placed together, as in some instances where they are, immediately after being cut, set on 

 edge to dry, and placed in serpentine directions in order to prevent them from falling 

 over. In the latter cases they should be formed or built up into little circular heaps or 

 piles, sorttewhat in the form and size of the little cocks made in hay-fields, the sods 

 being placed the grass-side downwards, in order to admit air ; but the openings 

 both at the bottoms and tops, after they have been fully set on fire by some combustible 

 substance, such as straw, &c., are to be closed up, and those in other parts covered by an 

 addition of sods, so that the combustion may proceed in a slov/ smothering manner, as 

 practised in the making of charcoal. When the whole of the earth in each of the piles 

 has been acted upon by the fire, the heaps may be suffered to extinguish themselves by 

 slowly burning out. 



3210. A variety of this operation, called skirting or peat-burning, is practised in Devonshire and Corn- 

 wall, for breaking up and preparing grass lands for the reception of fallow crops. A part of the sward or 

 surface is alternately left unturned, upon which the next thin furrow slice is constantly turned, so that 

 the swards of each come in contact, by which means the putrefactive fermentation is speedily excited, and 

 the greatest part of the grassy vegetable matter converted into manure. What ultimately remains 

 undcstroyed being, after repeated cross-cuttings with the plough and harrowings, collected into small 

 heaps and burnt, the ashes are then spread evenly over the land. 



3211. With respect to the implements used in paring, different kinds are made use of in different parts 

 of the island : that which was the most employed in the infancy of the art, was a kind of curved mattock 

 or adze, about seven or eight inches in length, and five or six in breadth ; and which, from its shape, 

 would appear to have been better adapted for cutting up the roots of brushwood, furze, broom, or other 

 coarse shrubs, than for paring off the surface of a field free from such incumbrances. Where the sod is 

 pared off by manual labour, the ordinary breast-spade, in some places called the breast-plough, and in 

 Scotland the flaughter-spade, is mostly employed. In working the tool, the labourer generally cuts the sods 

 at about an inch or an inch and a half thick, and from ten to twelve inches broad; and when the spade 

 has run under the sod to the length of about three feet, he throws it off, by turning the instrument to one 

 sjde; and proceeds in the same way, cutting and throwing over the sods, the whole length of the ridge. 

 In this way of performing the operation, the labourers, by following each other with a slice of the sward 

 or surface of the land, accomplish the business with much ease, and in an expeditious manner. 



3212. In the fenny districts, on the eastern coasts, where paring and burning is practised on a large 

 scale, the horse paring-plough is used, made of different constructions, according to the circumstances of 

 the ground to be pared. These ploughs are calculated for paring off the sward or sod of such grounds 

 a are leyel, and where neither stones, brush-wood, ant-hills, nor other impediments obstruct their 



