Chalk, in its general qualities, is very similar to lime and marl, and may be used much in the same way. It is highly useful upon stiff clays, which can hardly have too much of it; and it may be applied with advantage to grass lands, especially to meadows, wherever it can be obtained conveniently.

Chalk exists in great quantities in some parts of England, and is much used as a manure; but, like other calcareous manure, it requires that there should be vegetable or animal matter in the soil for it to act upon, without which its fertilizing qualities are comparatively powerless.

Sea-sand forms a very valuable manure, wherever it can be obtained, as it may be abundantly in some situations. Its quality, however, is not everywhere the same; but that which most abounds in shells, is the most valuable.

Sea-sand is useful in all sorts of soils, and it may be laid on at all seasons of the year; but, like lime, it requires to be kept as much at the surface as possible, it being apt to sink deep in the earth. Sand is particularly valuable for clay lands, rendering them less stiff and adhesive, at the same time that it increases their fertility. Sand may also be used with advantage in all the compounds, and adds greatly to the value of the compost heap. In whatever way it is applied, it will in fact be found beneficial, unless the soil be of a loose and sandy nature, requiring clay or adhesive applications.

It is obvious that the sooner sand is applied to the land, or to the compost heap, the better will it be. When carted directly from the shore, it contains a portion of sea-salt, which is itself valuable as a manure, but which is lost if the sand be allowed to lie exposed to the action of the weather for any considerable time, as is often the case. The farmers on the coast, having an abundance of the article, are too apt to be heedless and wasteful in its collection and application. It is often

carried to a considerable distance inland, and wherever attainable it should never be neglected.

Sea-weed, constitutes a valuable manure. It produces good crops of potatoes and vegetables of all kinds, particularly cabbages; but it is not lasting in its effects on the soil, owing to the large quantity of water which it contains, and which goes off in evaporation. It decays without producing heat when exposed to the air, and seems to dry up or dissolve away. A large heap has disappeared in less than two years, leaving nothing but a little black shrivelled fibre. Probably one of the best ways of using sea-weed, is to plough it into stubble, as fresh as possible. By so doing, the labour of collecting, mixing, and carting out composts is avoided; and the stubble straw, instead of withering away unprofitably, is covered in with the sea-weed, and is immediately converted into a valuable manure.

The acrid and astringent qualities of sea-weed are, however, sometimes found to be injurious, if used by itself for a long continuance; but this is not the case where it is formed into a compost with earth, sand, ashes, clay, or other substances, and turned over and mellowed before being applied to the land. Such mixing of materials would seem, indeed, to be generally the best mode in which manures of all kinds can be used; and the compost so formed, is alike suitable for grass and tillage land.

Ashes, are a good manure for potatoes or turnips. On cold, boggy, and heathy lands, in which there is an excess of coarse herbage, burning may often be resorted to with advantage. The objection to burning is, that it destroys the surface-soil; but where there is a superabundance of vegetable matter, as in bogs, the destruction of a portion of it by fire is beneficial; and the alkali which exists in the ashes, will constitute a useful stimulant to the growth of crops.

Cold, boggy, and heathy land, not worth 2s. an acre

in its natural state, by once burning the surface, and afterwards liming or manuring with dung, has been rendered highly valuable and productive. It is against the abuse of this practice that you are to guard: but moors and stiff soils may often be improved by burning, after the land has been properly drained; and these joint operations will rarely fail of converting what was stiff, damp, and cold, into a soil mellow, dry, and

warm.

Burnt Clay.The ashes obtained by burning clay, have long been used as a manure on heavy lands in some districts of England, and with considerable advantage, the ashes thus applied serving to lighten and mellow the soil for six or seven years afterwards. The work of burning usually begins in May, and continues through the summer, in heaps of from fifty to one hundred cubic yards* each. Brushwood and faggots are mostly used, but sometimes coal where it is cheap. The quantity required of either is however not great, if the work is properly performed.

The clay to be burned is not the upper and better portion of the soil, but the colder and closer kinds, dug out of any pit at any depth below the surface, together with the scouring of ditches and rubbish of every description. The walls or outside of the heap are usually formed of turf, within which the clods and lumps of clay are placed, so that the fire may draw gently through them in burning. If piled up too loosely, the draught will be too strong, and the burning too rapid; if too closely piled, there will not be draught sufficient. The slower the burning proceeds the better, provided that the clay is effectually burnt and pulverized.

The heaps must be attended to night and day whilst burning, to prevent the fires going out, or burning too fiercely, in which case the clay becomes burnt to a

*A cubic yard is generally considered as equivalent to a cartload.

kind of brick, and is then perfectly useless. When the burning is rightly managed, the clay is converted into a blackish kind of ashes, and this is the thing to be aimed at.

The quantity of the ashes to be applied to arable lands is from forty to fifty loads to the acre, and on grass lands from twenty to thirty loads per acre.

The ashes are usually carted on after harvest upon clover leys, stubbles, or fallows. Upon grass lands they may be laid on at any time most convenient.

Burnt clay may be used to form a compost with earth, sand, marl, or other manures; and in this way it will be found highly beneficial as a top-dressing, and in lightening the texture and improving the condition of stiff heavy lands.

Bones, constitute a manure, than which none can be more advantageously employed for raising turnips. When broken or ground into dust and drill, and used in equal proportions, it ensures an early and weighty crop. From twenty-five to thirty bushels per statute acre, is the quantity usually required for drill-sowing, which is generally, if not always, to be preferred to broadcast.

Bone manure is at once stimulating and nutritive, and very durable in its effects. When broken into pieces of about an inch in size, it will be three or four years before these are entirely decomposed in the soil, and they will continue to throw off coats of calcareous matter promoting vegetation. When the bones are bruised, or broken small, or ground into powder, the effect is of course more immediate.

The finest vetches, and a crop of wheat afterwards, have been produced from a dressing of bruised bones of twenty-five bushels to the acre. It is, as before stated, an excellent manure for a turnip crop. It may be laid on and covered in at the last ploughing, whether the turnip-seed be drilled or sown broadcast, though the drill is always to be preferred. It is well suited to dry land and light sandy soil, and is also ex

tremely beneficial to grass land, when the bones are bruised small, or reduced to powder.

If the turnip-crop raised with bone manure be not eaten off by sheep, the land will require to be manured when sown in spring; but if it be sheep fed, it will be fit for a grain crop without manure.

Rape Dust, Meal Dust, and Malt Dust, are each of them highly fertilizing manures. They are very stimulating, as well as nutritious, and for that reason are especially beneficial in turnip culture. Their portability, moreover, often renders these manures of great convenience and value to the farmer. From fifteen to twenty cwt. of either is sufficient for an acre. Rape dust drilled with autumn-sown wheat, at the rate of four to five cwt. per acre, has been found to answer well, and give an abundant crop.

Guano, is a substance which has been recently imported and used as a manure. It is composed of the excrements of the sea-fowl which frequent the islands on the coast of Chili and Peru, and is admirably fitted for use as manure, as it contains ammoniacal salts in great abundance, as well as other constituents essential to vegetation. It has been extensively used by the Peruvians since the 12th century, and the sterile soils of the South American coast are by its application made to yield luxuriant crops.

There can be no question as to the fertilizing qualities of the guano, and if it can be obtained in such quantities, and at such a price, as to make it available for the general purposes of agriculture in this country, it will become highly useful to the farmer. It has been used successfully with turnips at the rate of three cwt. per acre, harrowed in with the seed sown broadcast; and it seems, on the whole, to be better calculated for green, than for corn crops.

The quantity of this substance on the islands whence