tscher to yield 44 per cent. of gypsum, 364 of 
silica, 17°3 of alumina, 33 of oxide of iron, 2 of 
carbonate of lime, 35 of magnesia, 4 of chloride 
of calcium, and 2°7 of carbonaceous residue. 
The bog whence the Newbury peat ashes are 
made lies beneath good meadow soil, generally 
about five feet from the surface, in a bed of from 
one foot to nine feet in thickness, and at such a 
level below neighbouring hills of chalk as to re- 
ceive large calcareous depositions from floods or 
during heavy rains. Peats or squared clods of 
it are cut, laid out to dry in a similar manner to 
the peats or turf of the Scottish and Irish bogs 
for fuel, and, after being thoroughly dried, are 
burnt upon the spot in such accumulated heaps 
as usually yield, in each case, a mass of ashes two 
or three yards deep, and seven yards in diame- 
ter; and the ashes are then sifted, and conveyed 
away in covered carts to sheds, to be there kept 
perfectly dry till they are wanted for the land. 
Slow combustion is found to produce a larger 
proportion of alkali than rapid combustion ; and 
the storing of the ashes is found to maintain their 
manurial powers in a vastly stronger and more 
active condition than if they were exposed to 
the weather. The proportion of ashes yielded by 
any quantity of peats is seldom equal to one- 
fourth of their bulk, yet occasionally amounts to 
two-fifths, and has even been known to amount 
to twelve parts in thirty-five. The ashes are 
usually employed at the rate of from 12 to 15 
bushels per acre of turnip or clover land, and 
from 18 to 20 bushels per acre of meadow-land ; 
when used for top-dressings, they are applied in 
March and April; and when otherwise used, they 
are either spread on the land in autumn, or more 
generally with the sowing of the seed in spring. 
They are a poor manure for corn crops; they an- 
swer well for turnips in wet seasons, and are be- 
lieved to act beneficially against the turnip fly, 
but, in dry seasons, are apt to give the crop a 
burned appearance ; and they have so powerful 
an effect upon clover as to increase the produce 
of it nearly a ton per acre above the ordinary 
yield ; but they maintain a vigorous action during 
only two seasons, and then almost totally cease 
to have influence. They require to be spread in 
perfectly calm weather; and one man, with a 
double cart, can manure several acres with them 
in one day. Some inferior kinds are sold at 
threepence per bushel, and the best kinds are 
sold at sevenpence. 
_ The peats cut in Holland for fuel, in the same 
manner as those in Great Britain and Ireland, 
burn easily, but yield a whitish kind of ashes 
which are of little use asa manure. But from 
the bottom of the pools or ditches which are made 
by cutting these peats, soft or mud bog is fished 
up with hooped bags at the end of long sticks, 
and is poured on the adjacent ground to be 
drained of its water; and, after being consoli- 
dated by a few days’ exposure to the air, it is cut 
into pieces of the size of building bricks, and 
dried for use as fuel. The ashes obtained from 
it are the Dutch ashes which have for about half | 
a century been celebrated as fertilizers ; and they 
are obtained in the ordinary course of the con- 
sumpt of fuel, and carefully gathered into carts 
which go the round of the cottages and other 
houses in which the mud- prepared peats are 
used. Peats of apparently quite the same kind 
—manufactured out of the bog mud at the bot- 
tom of cut bog-holes, and possessing a blackness, 
a hardness, and a semi-mineral fracture almost 
like the soft kinds of coal—are extensively made 
in several districts of Ireland, and, if properly 
inquired into and economized, might probably 
be found to yield quite as good ashes as those of 
Holland. In Belgium, where the Dutch ashes are | 
in general request as a most valuable or even indis- 
pensable manure, they are used for nearly all fer- 
tilizing purposes in both the garden and the field. 
They are scattered over the surface of gardens, 
after the plots and beds are sown and raked; and 
they are found to act beneficially on nearly all 
the kinds of culinary vegetables. They are ap- 
plied to hops, in the manner of a handful to each 
plant. They are sown on clover, wheat, and pas- 
tures in March and April; on oats and beans, in 
the beginning of May; and on rye, in October 
and November. When given to clover, they are 
distributed in a proportion which corresponds, in 
our measures, to 19 bushels per acre; and when 
applied to grain, they act partly in accelerating 
its early growth, but principally in increasing its 
quantity. In Holland, the ashes are used in the 
proportion of about 20 bushels per acre; and after 
the reaping of wheat and the harrowing of the 
ground, are strewed upon clover which was sown 
with the wheat in spring; and theyare thus applied 
in the wheat and clover season of a rotation which 
consists of potatoes, rape, pease, wheat, clover, 
and oats. An eminent Dutch agriculturist, F. 
L. W. Brakkel, commends this method of using | 
the ashes as highly advantageous; but another | 
agriculturist, J. R. Schwarz, says that they ought 
to be used in a dry state, and thinly strewed, and 
that, on ploughed land, they ought to be harrowed 
in before or at the time of sowing. The Dutch 
ashes began to be somewhat extensively imported 
to Leith about the year 1833, and to be sold there 
at a total charge of £3 per ton, so as to be avail- 
able for manuring lands in the vicinity of that | 
port at the cost of about £1 per acre. Mr. John 
Mitchell of Leith, who in that year introduced 
them to the notice of Scottish farmers through 
the medium of the Highland Society’s Transac- 
tions, says, “The Dutch ashes require no previ- 
ous expense or preparation in this country, but 
can be immediately applied after being landed ; 
whereas bones and rape cake have to undergo the 
process of grinding before they are fit for use. | 
As a top-dressing, these ashes are superior to 
common manure, it having been found, on mak- 
ing comparative trials in Flanders, that the crops 
of clover where the ashes were used, were much 
~~ 
