142 
On Burning Clay. 
ledge, who have tried to lead the men to abandon that mode of 
receiving payment, have, after experience, resumed the payment 
in Hquor, though many give, as occasion may suggest, a portion 
of liquor as a reward for well-timed and good-natured zeal. 
PORTMAN. 
VIII. — On Burning Clay. By Charles Poppy. 
To Mr. Pusey. 
Sir, — Having seen a report of your experiment in burning a poor 
clay soil, I trust you will excuse my informing you that burning 
clay is continued to be much practised on the cold clay-lands in 
this county (Suffolk), and is the main source of manure with 
the labourers on their allotments and gardens; at least they burn 
all rubbish and clods where permitted, but many owners will not 
permit their tenants to burn the surface-soil. 
Two years since I redrained a very poor piece of land, at nine 
feet distance, ploughed it up when tolerably dry in the spring, 
and burned all 1 could get taken up with three-tined forks, in 
heaps 30 yards in circuinlerence, on a space of two acres, break- 
ing the clods as they were thrown on the heaps. When burnt, it 
was carted and spread on the same land, and the quantity proved 
to be 30 bushels per rod, or 4800 per acre. 
The field was fallowed through the summer, and sown with 
barley and clover last spring twelvemonth. On a part of the 
field where not burnt, 4 cwt. of guano were sown upon the barley ; 
another unburnt portion was manured with town-muck ; and a 
third portion, also unburnt, was left unmanured. The barley 
proved equal in bulk where manured with burnt clay, with guano, 
and with town-muck, the yield being apparently one-third more 
than where no manure was applied. The present crop of clover 
where the burnt earth was spread is a very heavy crop, also where 
the town-manure was laid ; but I cannot see that on the portion 
where the guano was sown on the barley the clover is the least 
better than where the land was left unmanured. 
In another field I burnt ditch and bank earth, and laid them on 
the land for barley, which proved as much superior to the rest of 
the field as in the other case ; and the be;ins, as far as the burnt 
earth was spread, are a foot higher than the rest of the field. 
As far as I could judge by the description of the soil you 
burned, mine was very similar. The weather is so suitable for 
burning clods, which abound on heavy soils, and the cost merely 
labour, that I thought it possible you might wish to know the effect 
of burnt earth in such a severe drought as the present. The 
