298 
On Burning Clay. 
to use a much larger quantity the present season, and my neigh- 
bours are following my example. It was used at the rate of 
1000 bushels per acre on a wheat-field sown with clover, leaving 
the middle of the field undone. The benefit was striking, not 
only in the wheat, but in the young clover. The whole of the 
field had been top-manured with guano, harfowed in with the seed. 
Where the burned earth was not used, the clover-plants and the 
wheat were inferior. 
It may be proper to explain that it was not turfy earth full of 
vegetable matter, but a poor, cold, argillaceous, tenacious clay, 
such as is used for making bricks, yellow in colour, but becoming 
when burned a pale red or orange : the interior of some of the 
largest lumps being black or carbonaceous (I presume the small 
quantity of vegetable matter concentrates there) ; occasionally 
this soil contains a fair proportion of round pebbles. 
The mode of raising and burning is this — a strip of land is 
broken up in very dry weather with Ransome's Y. L. plough, 
drawn by three strong horses abreast, and a Scotch equilibrium 
whippletree. So great is the resistance that it requires two men 
to hold the handles of the plough to counteract the leverage of 
the horses. The earth is thus broken, or I may say torn up in 
immense rough masses or clods as much as a man can carry, which 
are admirably adapted to form walls and supports for the mass of 
fire. By this means heaps of nearly 200 solid yards may be 
readily burned. The earth being ploughed up, the fires are 
formed on the spot, the workmen placing a certain quantity of 
dried stumps or wood of sufficient solidity to maintain a body of 
heat, and enclosing the mass with large clods. These arc carried 
by hand : subsequently, as they get more distant from the fire, a 
barrow is used, and beyond that a one-horse cart. 
It is important to have the sides of the heap as upright as 
possible — not conical — because the heat always makes for the 
highest place. An important point in burning is to supply the 
fire sufficiently fast to prevent its burning through, and yet avoid 
overlaying it, which might exclude all air, and put it out. Prac- 
tice will indicate the medium. When the fire shows a tendency 
to break through, the outside of the burning mass is raked down, 
and more earth added. 
If the ground is very dry, and no rain falls, the men are 
obliged to feed the fire almost continually night and day ; but 
when there is moisture, it may be left for five or si.x hours, but 
seldom longer. 
Something depends on the current of air. A strong wind 
would blow the fire from one side and out at the other. This is 
guarded against by placing hurdles interlaced with straw as a 
guard to windward. 
