1028 THE COMPLETE GRAZIER. BOOK xi. 



Ireland, and has been found eminently serviceable where the land has 

 afterwards been judiciously cropped. 



The good effects of this application are, however, to be attributed 

 rather to the mechanical alterations which it produces in the soil than 

 to any peculiarly chemically fertilising properties inherent in the burnt 

 clay. Clods intended for burning should be pulverised with the clod- 

 crusher before being collected into heaps ; furze and bean-straw are the 

 best fuel for the purpose. The fire should smoulder and char rather 

 than actually burn, for charcoal of any kind is, from its porous and 

 absorbent qualities, preferable to ashes. A steady and sufficiently 

 strong heat should be kept up, but without flame ; with this object the 

 external air must be as far as possible excluded. 



Such laborious and expensive operations as marling and claying have 

 not been practised to any considerable extent since agricultural depres- 

 sion set in. Moreover, some of the objects which in past times could 

 be attained only by means of these operations, can now be secured by 

 the application of artificial manures. 



On very light sandy soils, the operation of CLAYING, that is, applying 

 raw clay to the land and afterwards incorporating it with the soil, is found 

 effective in counteracting the looseness and porosity which are amongst 

 the chief defects of soils of the kind referred to. 



The various operations that have been discussed in this chapter are 

 all illustrative of the general principle that the incorporation with any 

 soil of mineral matter differing from it in composition and in texture 

 will generally result in bringing it nearer to the character of the soil best 

 suited to the purposes of the cultivator the ideal loam. The reason 

 that a mixing of two different soils usually effects an improvement is 

 that each is in a position to supply some of the deficiencies of the 

 other. Not uncommonly, this admixture takes place naturally, as 

 where two rock formations of different mineral character crop out at 

 the surface of the earth, side by side ; the soil along the common out- 

 crop will be more fertile than the purer soil on either formation by 

 itself. The many familiar and well-approved operations known as 

 chalking, liming, marling, claying, warping, and even paring and burn- 

 ing and green-manuring, are all directed to the amelioration of the soil, 

 and to bringing about artificially what, in the case of alluvial soils and 

 of soils underlaid by the common outcrop of two differently constituted 

 formations, is effected naturally. 



