136 A PRACTICAL TREATISE 



the land, without mingling- it with the earth, the ground is 

 then well harrowed after it has been pared, and the loose stuff 

 being raked up and burned, generally produces only from >M) 

 to 50 bushels, which can hardly be considered in any other 

 light than as a cleansing to the soil ; except that, when much 

 nnxed with brushwood, their roots render the ashes of stronger 

 quality. But it is seldom confined within such bounds ; and, 

 when performed in a workmanlike manner, upon rough 

 ground of medium quality, to the depth of about two inches, 

 the operation has been known to produce from forty to fifty 

 cart-loads of 40 bushels each, or from 2000 to 2-100 bushels 

 per acre. 



The expense of paring and burning has been variously 

 calculated, and depends upon so many different circumstances, 

 that it is impossible to form a precise estimate for any other 

 than a particular case ; for not only must the soil on which 

 the operation is to be performed be considered, but also the 

 kind of instruments and the skill of the workmen employed, 

 the season, and the rate of wages, which generally bear a pro- 

 portion to that of horse-labour. 



Except on fen lands, the practice of paring and burning is 

 mostly confined to poor districts, consisting of chalky downs, 

 and wastes covered with heath and fern, or any rough land 

 whatever, which is intended to be brought immediately into 

 cultivation ; the advantages attending which are thus described 

 by Mr. Boys in the treatise to which we have already alluded. 



When old downs, heaths, or sheep-walks of a calcareous 

 basis of soil, are pared and burned early in the summer, and 

 the land twice ploughed, however poor the soil may be, it 

 becomes a fine tilth for turnips ; the production ot a full crop 

 of which upon such lands, where they have never before been 

 seen, and where they could hardly by any other means be 

 obtained, is of such great benefit both to the farmer and to the 

 soil, that it would be needless to say any more in recommenda- 

 tion of the process, were it not necessary for the information 

 of those who are not acurately acquainted with the advantage 

 to be derived from turnips in poor countries. 



We have the authority of Mr. George Sinclair, for saying 

 that "all the advantages here spoken of he has ever witnessed 

 to follow the processes of paring and burning, however poor 

 and rough; but the like texture (thin and poor) of soil con- 

 taining very little, if any, calcareous matter, that is, wild lime, 



