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fuel , spreading out their peats to dry on its surface, whence itgot the name of the spread field. When this spread field hadbecome thirty or forty yards broad, a new ditch was dug betweenit and the unreclaimed moss, for carrying off a new breadth ofthe flow. A second and deeper ditch was dug on the outer sideof the spread field, completely down to the inferior clay, and tothe depth of twelve or eighteen inches in that clay or carse soil.The intermediate space between these two ditches, containing thewhole cleared spread field, was divided into parallel beds, byditches from the higher and inner ditch to the outer and deeperone. The rivulet was let into the inner ditch, whence it filled allthe lateral ditches leading to the outer one ; and a number of menstationed on each side of these lateral ditches were employed tospade the moss earth into them, whence it was floated away bytheir streams of water into the deep outer ditch, and by which itwas conveyed finally to the river. In this latter process of re-moving the black peat-earth by floating, a thin stratum of fromnine to twelve inches was left above the clay, consisting partlyof black peat-earth, and partly of the remains of wood. In thefirst dry season, generally in August, this was spaded into looseheaps to dry, and then burnt as a manure for the newly acquir-ed carse soil. The roots of the original oaks of the ancient fo-rest, which still remained in the clay, were gradually dug outand burnt, which was always a laborious and often an exceeding-ly tedious operation. It has been stated that the expense of clear,ing away an acre of flow moss and spread field from the rich sub-jacent carse soil, in the manner just described, was from 12 1. to161. The process is doubtless slow; but to have removed thewhole mass from top to bottom at once, would have requiredmore than double the expense ; and besides, in the moss of Kip-pen, where this mode was first practised, it was necessary to haveregard to the future supply of fuel to the adjacent district.
The land thus cleared will yield four or even five successivegood crops of oats, without any other manure than the ashes ofthe thin stratum left for being burnt. After this course of severecropping, it was usual with some of the proprietors to leave theexhausted ground to gather natural herbage, after the old systemof lea husbandry; and it soon became covered with phleurn pra-tense and holcus lanatus, while the ditches were luxuriantly filledwith poa aquatica, all of which grasses are exceedingly acceptableto cattle. This antiquated system of exhausting the soil by over-cropping is very far from commendable, being ruinous and ab-surd in the extreme. Neither can we give much greater praiseto a somewhat different system, which is said to be followed up-on some part of this recovered carse soil in the parish of Kippenby one of the proprietors. He takes three successive crops ofoats; after which he fallows the land, and gives it a copious