20 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
tliat sheep are such close grazers, they would pick out all the 
finest grasses, and liinder the deer from thriving. 
Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23) " to burn 
on any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, 
ling, heath and furze, gorse or fern, is punishable with whipping 
and confinement in the House of Correction ; " yet, in this forest, 
about March or April, according to the dryness of the season, 
such vast heath- fires are lighted up, that they often get to a 
masterless head, and, catching the hedges, have sometimes been 
communicated to the underwoods, woods, and coppices, where 
great damage has ensued. The plea for these burnings is, that 
when the old coat of heath, &c., is consumed, young will sprout 
up and afford much tender browse for cattle ; but, wliere there 
is large old furze, the fire, following the roots, consumes the 
very ground ; so that for hundreds of acres nothing is to be 
seen but smother and desolation, the whole circuit round look- 
ing like the cinders of a volcano ; and the soil being quite 
exhausted, no traces of vegetation are to be found for years. 
These conflagrations, as they take place usually with a north- 
east or east wind, much amioy this village with their smoke, and 
often alarm the country ; and, once in particular, I remember 
that a gentleman, who lives beyond Andover, coming to my 
house, when he got on the downs between that town and Win- 
chester, at twenty-five miles distance, was surprised much with 
smoke and a hot smell of fire; and concluded that Alresford 
was in flames ; but when he came to that town, he then had 
apprehensions for the next village, and so on to the end of his 
journey.-^ 
1 This description reminds the scholar of the stubble-burning described 
in Virgil's " Georgics," i. 84, Mitford. There is no better fertihzer for the 
soil than the ashes of weeds and other vegetable growths, and this the poet 
knew. 
" Ssepe etiam steriles incendere profuit agros, 
Atque levem stipulam crepitantibus urere flammis : 
Sive inde occaltas vires et pabula terrae 
Pinguia concipiunt." 
Long practice has a sure improvement found, 
With kindled fires to burn the barren ground ; 
AVhen the light stubble, to the flames resigned, 
Is driven along, and crackles to the wind." — Drydex. 
