now rather suffer a road to become impassable, than compel an individual to repair it, at an expence beyond his means, or amounting to his ruin. This now would be frequently the case; for however extensive the land liable to the repair, might formerly have been, it is, at this time, frequently reduced into a narrow stripe, on each, or at least on one side of the road, perhaps into the little tenement and gartlı of a cottager. Under these great changes of circumstances, where roads remain liable to repair by prescription, and the individual bound to repair, is unequal to the burden, the law ought to allow some redress; for he cannot perform an impossibility; and it is not desirable that any one should be ruined with performing even what is possible. Without this alteration of the law, many roads will long continue in a state almost impassable." In ordinary cases of this kind, a sum of money paid down, or an annual payment made, to the parish or township, would seem to be the most eligible method of relieving individuals from such disagreeable burdens ;-and providing travelable roads for the public.

The following may serve as a valuable hint to the formers of roads across mountains. P. 299. "Over the eastern morelands, between Kirby-moorside and Egton, for eleven miles, a road has lately been cut: the earth is taken from the sides of the road, so that the barrel is formed without any of it being thrown upon the crown, but it is laid in heaps on each side of the road, which enables the traveller more easily to trace the line of it during storms of snow, to which this dreary tract is so liable in winter.

"This practice ought to be generally followed upon both the morelands, where snow in winter, and many extensive mosses, render travelling at all times dangerous to such strangers as are under the necessity of traversing them."

SUBJECT

SUBJECT THE THIRD.

RURAL ECONOMY.

DIVISION THE FIRST.

LANDED ESTATES; their IMPROVEMENT and MANAGEMENT.

ESTATES and TENURES. Sizes of Estates.-P. 23. "The size of estates in this Riding is very variable; about one-third of it is possessed by yeomanry; the remainder of it is divided into estates of various sizes,' from 5001. to 17 or 18,0001. per annum; to which last amount a single instance of an estate occurs, though it is thought no other nearly approaches it. Much the largest proportion of the dales of the morelands is in the possession of yeomanry, rarely amounting to 1501. per annum."

Tenures. P. 31.-" The tenure of the country is freehold, with some few instances of copyhold pperty, and some of leasehold for 1000 or other long term of years, and some instances of leases for three lives, renewable at the fall of every life; these last are chiefly held under the church, or other corporate bodies; are seldom occupied by the lessee. who generally leases the whole estate at the place, but are farmed out again by him to others."

IMPROVING ESTATES.-Reclaiming Wild Lands: In the different Reports of the MOUNTAIN DEPARTMENT, it was reasonable to expect that circumstantial accounts of the present state, and the management, of the mountain lands comprised within each county, would have been laid before the public; together with the most successful means of reclaiming them from their wild state. But, hitherto, I have been un

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able to detect much satisfactory evidence, on any one of those three points; excepting what relates to the operation of sodburning.

In the Report now under notice, however, many remarks are brought forward, on the general subject of Reclaim:-several of which are deserving of notice.

The first that arrests attention is a paper of Mr. SIMPSON of Saintoft Grange, near Pickering; containing an account of his improvements on a tract of wild lands, situated between the limestone heights and the morelands, of East Yorkshire.

P. 207. Entering on the above farm in the year 1787, it was evident that the nature of the mossy herbage, intermixed with patches of ling," (heath) " on even the best of the limestone and sandy soils, indicated paring thin, and burning, as the best husbandry; so indeed I thought, and so in general acted; but being a young farmer, and having frequently heard it asserted, that to burn soil was to destroy it,' I ploughed out ten acres of the best herbage, and the most free from ling, on the limestone soil, without paring; I may add, that I had sufficient cause to repent it, for I have not even had one middling crop from it since; and although laid down with seeds, they have by no means so good an appearance as those sown the same year on similar soils, although I have expended as much lime and manure on this as on any part of the farm.

"It appeared to me likewise, that paring and burning the black moory soil. on a good sub-soil, would answer a doubly good purpose; for by paring tolerably thick and burning, I not only changed the worst and least putrified part of the soil into good ashes, rich in alkaline salts, but, by so doing, I brought the sub-soil within the reach of the plough, and could at pleasure mix it with the remaining black soil, and expose it to the influence of the air. "I kept

I kept likewise another object in view, and that was, to begin with a larger proportion of the best and most productive land, and a smaller of the worst, that, by so doing, it might not only pay for its own cultivation and improvement as I proceeded, but that I might get into a better stock of manure."

In giving a detail of his proceedings (which is not sufficiently interesting to be copied at length), Mr. S. says, p. 209,-" One thing in this field deserves remark about an acre of it, of as good a soil as any of the rest, was not limed; the consequence of which was, that although not perceptible in the turnip crop, it was very much so in the oats, and still more in the grass-seeds; very little white clover was to be seen: and now, although the other parts of the field is a tolerably good herbage, with a few thinly-scattered small branches of ling coming amongst it (owing, I suppose, to its not having been long enough in tillage to destroy all the roots of this hardy plant), yet that part of the field unlimed, is nearly destitute of herbage, and covered with heath."

I insert the following remarks of Mr. Simpson, as they may be useful in agitating a difficult subject. They are very ingenious.-P. 213." The great error into which many, in my recollection, have fallen, in opening out-land for the first time, is the ploughing out the tough mossy sward without paring and burning*; the consequence is, that for the first four or five years, there is an almost total failure of crop, and, of course, a want of manure for the next succession. This is done under the mistaken idea that, by burning, so much of the soil is almost totally dissipated

"Mr. SIMPSON's observation perfectly agrees with mine: the best method of making this kind of tilth valuable, is to burn it.J. Smeddle.

"Mr. SIMPSON is certainly right; paring and burning can never be attended with any bad consequences upon such lands as these. A landlord should never object, under such circumstances.—W. Mİ??·

sipated and lost. Now, although we are in want of experiments to make it evident, what greater pro-, portion of vegetable matter is dissipated in suffering combustion with a slow fire, and in contact with earthy matter, than would be dissipated in the same undergoing putrefaction; yet we know, that as all vegetable soils contain more or less of calcareous earth, in its mild state, the subjecting this to the action of fire, must increase its activity as a manure, by bringing it nearer to the state of quick lime, and that the silecious and argillacious parts of the soil are not dissipated in burning."

The REPORTER, in answering a note, adverse to paring and burning, elicits this apt retort.-N. p. 215. "Anonymous seems to conclude, that if land be pared and burnt, corn must be grown thereon. This is not a necessary consequence. If I am going to improve any of these morelands, the first considerations are, what do I want to obtain?-Improvement of the land. By what means can I best obtain that!-By producing the largest quantity of food for sheep.-How is this to be obtained?-By paring and burning, and the use of lime; and by those means, a larger crop of either turnips or rape may be obtained, than by lime without paring and burning; and the better crop of turnips that is obtained the first year, the better the second year; and the better the crops of turnips are, the better will the grass be afterwards.J. T."

P. 218. A very capital improvement was made about twenty years since, under the direction of WILLIAM DINSDALE, on a large tract of the moors betwixt Hawks well and Richmond; the soil a black turf earth.

"The ling being first burnt off, the land was ploughed in summer, and cross-ploughed in autumn. In spring following, it was limed, and after one more ploughing, sown with turnips, which were eaten off with sheep these were succeeded by oats, they, by

a whole