92 
Oil Reclaiming Heath Land. 
engaging it with the paring spade from the \incut sward, when 
tilting over the parings as they are cut. But this should only be 
allowed as an act of necessity, as it deprives the parings of their 
inflammable parts, and makes them diflficult to burn afterwards. 
It is often accompanied with danger also, which it is prudent to 
avoid, and should only be applied to isolated patches. 
On thin soils I recommend thin paring. Thick paring should 
only be resorted to on superabundant bog earth, or on sour rushy 
spongy lands, where we have a great amount of vegetable and 
fibrous root. I consider the ashes upon very thin soils, where many 
people would question the propriety of paring and burning, a po- 
sitive benefit, instead of an ultimate injury, which is frequently 
apprehended. I have seen many convincing proofs to strengthen 
me in this opinion. Without being tedious, I trust I may take 
the liberty of giving one instance as an example. 
About eighteen years ago, my father reclaimed a plot of thin 
cold-bottomed heath land, containing about twenty acres. The 
season was a wet and unfavourable one for burning parings ; and, 
in consequence, a few patches in several parts of the field could 
not be burnt, or at least were not burnt — in all about four acres. 
An additional quantity of lime was put upon these patches, with 
the view of compensating for the want of ashes ; the parings were 
turned down, and great pains taken in getting them well ploughed 
in. Two crops of oats were taken off the field in succession, and 
afterwards a crop of turnips, which were consumed on the land by 
sheep. Jn the ibllowing year tlie land was sown down in oafs, 
with a good variety of grass and clover seeds. Amongst all these 
several crops of oats, turnips, and grass seeds, any person, on 
looking at die field, might have told to a yard the patches whereon 
the parings had not been burnt ; the produce being so much infe- 
rior to the rest of the field, even with the additional quantity of 
lime, which did not supply the defect. The land was all of the 
same quality, so that the difference could not be attributed to that 
cause ; but afforded a decisive proof that the ashes were of much 
more value than the unconverted substance from which they were 
made ; and a still further proof was that, for several years after- 
wards, when the land was in pasturage, these dark, inert, and un- 
productive patches might still have been traced out. I could 
point out many other instances of a similar kind ; some, where the 
parings were carted off into large heaps, and made into compost 
with a sufficiency of quick lime, and afterwards rccarted to the 
parts in that state, with little better effect. Such proofs as these 
have convinced me of llie extraordinary fertility of ashes made 
from turf; and also that the system of paring and burning the 
surface in reclaiming heath land nuiy be safely adopted, not only 
without temporary or permanent injury to the land, but even to 
