190 On Oat Pasture, 



been ploughed for upwards of 20 years, and of course 

 a j^eat body of rubbish and roots were ploughed in, 

 after the briar-hook and grubbing-hoe had smoothed 

 the surface. Spreading of manure in the autumn, from 

 the compost bed, has also been introduced with uni- 

 versal success, both upon grain and grass fields, the 

 lye or salts, of the manure, being carried into the soil 

 by the rains upon the breaking up of the frosts, which 

 have in some measure prepared the soil to receive it. 

 High agricultural authorities, even bottomed on accu- 

 rate observation, are opposed to the practice of spread- 

 ing out manure in autumn ; am^ongst these we find the 

 justly celebrated Lord Kaims, in his gentleman farmer, 

 a work upon first principles, and deservedly of the high- 

 est authority. A departure from his judgment is only 

 to be allowed, where facts would censure silence ; nor 

 should his name have been mentioned, unless to avoid 

 the charge of writing without attending to Vv^hat has 

 been said on that subject ; it is no conclusive objection 

 that " the strength of the manures, will be carried off 

 by winter rains, or exhausted by the frost :" are not 

 the warm showers more so, and are not the exhalations 

 more copious in a warm than in a cold temperature ; is 

 the descending of the sap in trees no mionitor, as to the 

 season for spreading out manures, and about the ope- 

 rations of nature, for renewing, and invigorating, the 

 process of vegetation. 



Briar-bushes, and all vegetable substances have been 

 covered up with earth, rotted and used with the same 

 success, as stable manure, and so far, and so long, as 

 they separate parts of the soil and admit the air, they 

 fertilize and change the colour of the mould. These 



