PARING AND BURNING consists in cutting off the surface of the soil in thin slices, , which are then dried and burned. This is the most effectual way of reclaiming peat and other waste land, the surface of which is matted with coarse plants, difficult of decay. It is also applied advantageously to cold clay soils, apt to produce rank weeds and coarse grasses, which are to be broken up after lying for some time in grass. The ashes of the plants, consisting of potash and other salts, act as a powerful manure; while the clay, being reduced to the state of brick-dust, both improves the texture of the soil and nets as an absorbent for retaining moisture and nutritive gases, and giving them out to the roots of growing plants. On thin light soils the operation is rarely- advisable, for much of the scanty volatile vegetable matter is dissipated; however, if care is taken to make the turfs merely smolder without flame, so that the plants are rather charred than burned, it is doubtful whether more dissipation takes place than if the plants were plowed down and allowed slowly to decay. The plot to be reclaimed should, if necessary, be dried by stone or tile drains: and all large stones grubbed up and carted or conveyed off upon sledges. The paring is to he done, if possible, in the months of April and 'May, in order to have the most favorable part of the year for drying the parings well before burning. There are plows specially made for paring, with a very flat share; but the best method is to employ the or paring spade, as the surface is in most cases very irregular, and it is desirable to have the slices very thin. The parings should be burned directly
they are sufficiently dry, as, after lying a month or six weeks, they begin to unite with the ground, and imbibe moisture from the young grass vegetating beneath them. Sometimes they can be burned as they lie, without being collected into heaps; and iu this way the fire, in consuming the lingy side, which is undermost, chars the surface of the soil at the same time. If burned in heaps the heaps should be very small, in order to secure a good black ash, instead of the hard lumps of red ash produced by large fires. The weeds or refuse organic matters are thus only charred, instead of being entirely burned away; whilst the mineral matters are left in a soluble state instead of being reduced, as is too apt to be the easa where the operation is carelessly conducted, into an insoluble semi-vitrified slag. To attain these desirable results a smoldering lire must be maintained. by keeping the outside layer of sods so close as to prevent the fire from kindling into flame. The ashes should be spread, care being taken to clear the bottoms of the heaps well out, so that the first crop may be free from patches. The cost of thus paring, burning, and spreading is about per acre.