Burning Land for Manure. 



51 



ordinary gimlet; the nails were then made red hot, and so 

 placed in each hole and driven up to about half the length of the 

 shank, when they were knocked out and allowed to cool, or else 

 put in water to cool more expeditiously. When cold, the nails 

 can be driven into the holes previously drilled into the head by 

 burning. Any rough straight stick may be taken for a handle, 

 which can be affixed to the head by a piece of iron riveted to 

 the head, with a'spike attached thereto to insert into the rake- 

 handle (8 feet long), which should have an iron ferrule at the 

 end of it, to prevent it (the handle) from splitting. Persons in the 

 habit of burning soil for manure in the open field should always 

 be in possession of a few such rakes, particularly as they are 

 extremely useful for raking up all kinds of rubbish and stubble. 

 On soils which are very stiff, and not containing much vegetable 

 matter, great care is required in order to form heaps that will 

 burn thoroughly, without too great a degree of heat or too little. 

 One of the principal rules to be observed is always to erect the 

 sods on end (if they are not square) ; the three or four first sods 

 which are placed in the middle only having their grassy sides 

 presented to each other, each succeeding row being placed with 

 the grassy side next to the earthy side of the preceding row ; the 

 whole to be set up as compact as possible. When the heap is 

 thus erected of a dome-shape, fire should be applied at the top, on 

 which an ignited sod should be placed. Any clay with a mode- 

 rate degree of sward will thus, if carefully attended to, produce 

 a quantity of ashes suitable to the wants of the husbandman. It 

 may, and often does, happen that on clay-soils, on which burning 

 may be deemed advantageous, no sward exists ; the vegetable matter 

 principally consisting of weeds and grasses that only partake of 

 that character, the destruction of Avhich in such a case will form 

 as prominent an object with the farmer as the production of 

 ashes. When this occurs, the best plan for the agriculturist to 

 pursue, whether it respects the abundance of ashes to be ob- 

 tained or the complete destruction of the weeds, is to burn the 

 same in the clamp or kiln ; for, in the case now under consider- 

 ation, it will be found that, if the attempt is made to burn 

 the soil by the mode previously described, only a very small 

 amount of ashes can be procured, and the entire destruction of 

 the weeds will be problematical, as the clots of clay will be so 

 greatly divided, that it would be found extremely difficult to 

 construct an ordinarily formed heap of such materials as will 

 consume the entire vegetable matter contained therein. 



Burning in clamps, or large heaps, can only be accomplished 

 successfully by practised hands, and its due management can only 

 be ascertained by a thorough practical knowledge of the operation, 



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