sand, and lime. Care should be taken, however, to proportion the quantity of lime according as the land is light or heavy, cold or warm. Light soils have been hurt by too abundant applications of lime; and while one part of lime to from six to ten parts of earth may do for light soils, one part of lime to two, three, or more parts of earth, will be required for heavy soils.

The application of lime alone to land long under tillage, is often found not to be beneficial; but if the same quantity of lime had been applied in a compound state, with sand, turf, earth, clay, or vegetable mould, good effects would have resulted. On deep loams, lime may be applied in a caustic state, more frequently than to most other soils; but the testimony of experience is in favour of its being used in a compound state.

Marl, is a calcareous earth, and is very fertilizing, especially when used as a top-dressing. It is often found at the bottom of ponds and lakes, and also in strata at a considerable depth below the surface, and sometimes in immense masses, almost amounting to mines or quarries. It well repays the labour of collecting, and may be applied at all seasons of the year, and in almost any quantity.

Marl, like lime, is a powerful stimulant; and if not judiciously applied, and with intermediate applications of farm-yard or other putrescent manure, it will not be always beneficial to the land. It is found of different colours, and possessing different properties, according to the substances of which it is compounded.

Clayey marl is well suited to light sandy soils, which it improves and renders solid. To such soil it can hardly be applied in too great a quantity; as much as 130 loads may be laid on to the acre. Sandy marl is good for all stiff soils, rendering them friable and more easily worked. Shelly marl, as its name imports, is the product of shell-fish, and is highly fertilizing upon soils of every description. Its effects are not so quick as lime, but they are more lasting.

Marl and clay are sometimes mistaken for each other, being often very similar in their appearance and qualities. If clay has any considerable admixture of lime, it may almost be called marl; and either the one or the other may always be applied to light soils with advantage.

In some counties marl is very abundant, and of the best quality, and it is much used on the grass lands, being carted on early in the spring, or late in the autumn, and allowed to remain on the surface till it is decomposed. The strength and quality of marl may be ascertained by immersing a small fump, previously dried, in a cup of vinegar, and if it effervesces strongly, it may be considered good.

Gypsum, is a calcareous substance, which has long been used as a manure, and is held in high estimation by the agriculturists in Germany. Like lime and marl, it requires to be applied with discretion, and with alternations of other manures. Without attention in this respect, it will not always succeed. It has generally been found more useful when applied to clover, sainfoin, and the grasses, than in the cultivation of corn, or turnips and other green crops.

The soils upon which gypsum operates most beneficially, are the light dry sandy and gravelly sorts. On heavy loams, and strong clays, it appears to be of little. use. Gypsum being itself calcareous, it would seem to follow that it should not be applied to soils of that nature; but experience has proved that it may be advantageously applied to chalky and limestone soils. Upon land which has been exhausted by cropping, and which contains little vegetable matter, it will prove of little or no avail; but it will do good after an application of farm-yard dung, or of a green crop ploughed down.

Five bushels to the acre, is considered a sufficient dressing for red clover and the grasses; and it should be applied in dry weather, for if the weather be rainy, its effects will be lessened, if not altogether destroyed.

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.