places where soap is manufactured. It is said to require atmuch bulk as of dung to produce a good effect, and then it is agood and lasting manure, producing good crops of corn andgrass. It is most effectual when spread on grass grounds. Buiits weight and bulk make lime preferred when the distance isconsiderable.
The following substances, though not calcareous, are used asmanure, and originate from the mineral kingdom.
Refuse of salt, procured from salt manufactories, is said toanswer as a manure. But no account is given of the circum-stances relating to its application.
Ashes of coals, wood, and peats, consumed for domestic use,are carried out everywhere, and applied as manure. They arebrought also from towns, and from manufactories where muchfuel is consumed, and are found to have an immediate effect inexciting fertility. But ashes, made in families, are more fre-quently laid in heaps, mixed with other offals; and chamber lie,soap suds, and dirty water, throwm upon it. They are then foundto be a powerful manure ; peat moss is sometimes burnt for thepurpose of making ashes to be spread on grass ground, and soonproduces a superior verdure. The most approved way is to burnit in kilns or smothered heaps. The moss which is become rot-ten and brittle, bearing coarse herbage, is most easily burnt,and yields the most ashes. Ashes are found to be rather a quickthan a lasting manure.
Burnt clay or earth is found to occasion an increased fertility"wherever it is applied. But paring and burning, the means bywhich it is most plentifully obtained, is now almost abandonedin Scotland , except in some few places where there is a consider-able bulk of soft mossy matter on the surface. In those districtswhere paring and burning was practised, it is reported that veryluxuriant crops were first obtained ; but in the end, it was foundthat the soil was left almost in a ruinous state, and could scarce-ly be restored to its original fertility. Hence the practice hasbeen much reprobated ; and agriculturists have not yet resortedto any other means ©f obtaining burnt earth to any extent,though it is acknowledged to be a valuable mixture in the soil.
Soot, chiefly from coal fires, is collected in towns, and carried tofarms in the country, fometimes to a c.onfiderable diftance. It 13«fed as a top-dreffing in the fpring for young wheat or artificialgrafs, and fown from the hand. It has thus been found to forwardvegetation. That which is recently made is preferable to what hasbeen long kept.
Clay and fand are fometimes applied as alteratives, each to corredtthe faults of a foil which poffeffes the oppofite quality in excefs.It is a laborious operation, but is found to have happy effedts.IfVh.ea the parts of clayey foils are feparated by mechanic labour, in