On the Farming of Essex. 
13 
The advantages attending this process have long been can- 
vassed by agriculturists ; the objections taken by landlords and 
their agents are, that by continual repetition it reduces the staple 
of the soil, and by concentrating the salts and other matter enables 
the tenant to avail himself of all their fertilizing properties at 
once, to the injury of his successors; but on the other hand it is 
contended that, as the application of the system enables the tenant 
to produce excellent crops of vegetables upon a soil where none 
were originally grown, he is enabled to keep an increased quantity 
of stock, and thus more than repay by manure what he had ex- 
hausted by the fire. It is not the intention here to discuss the 
question, but to state a few facts that elucidate the point; the 
process undoubtedly when carried on in small heaps does not 
waste the soil as much as when in large heaps ; the direct advan- 
tages are the destruction of the coarse vegetable matter it con- 
tains, thus j)reventing the injurious effects from wireworm and 
other insects, by killing their larvae, the production also of a clean 
surface, and the being enabled at once to bring the land into 
cultivation for rape, turnips, mangold-wurzel, and cabbages, all 
of which succeed well after burning without the aid of farm- 
yard manure. The land to which the ashes are applied be- 
comes for several years afterwards more easy to pulverize ; and 
the first grain crop succeeding the application is frequently in- 
creased in quantity and quality 20 to 25 per cent. Barley cer- 
tainly partakes of the benefit more than any other crop, and the 
clover generally succeeds well afterwards. 
These are all advantages; and as to the disadvantages they 
cannot be met better than in the statement of Mr. Litchfield 
Tabrum, formerly of High Roothing, Bury, an extensive clay- 
land farm : for upwards of twenty-five years the system was 
carried out by him in the most perfect manner, and the sums 
paid for labour were very great ; but from the fact of the number 
of sheep and neat stock being increased six-fold at the latter por- 
tion of his term, and the productiveness of the farm so greatly 
increased as to induce the succeeding tenant to give a very con- 
siderably increased rent, we may infer that the advantages far 
outbalanced all those objections raised against its practice ; and 
from the high eulogiums passed upon the system by ]\Ir. Tabrum, 
and the success that attended his exertions throughout, added to 
his afterwards carrying out the same process upon his succeed- 
ing occupation with equal success, no one acquainted with him, 
or the facts attendant, can doubt of the benefit to be derived 
from his course of practice : other experienced farmers in the 
district, of whom Mr. Saltmarsh, of High Easter, stands most 
prominent, carry out the system with the same advantages. One 
point I omitted to mention is, that the quality of the barley as well 
