Now, that land so burnt and containing such ingredients would, after the process, refuse to grow clovers we cannot at all believe; but we do know that some of the land of a like composition will not grow even a crop of turnips until prepared as described; and though the taking a subsequent barley crop off before the clover would not tend to the improvement of the latter, it will be too often because the barley has taken all the available manurial matter, so that there is little left for the clover to feed upon. In such cases we have seen the clover saved by top dressing. Paring and burning had also a salutary effect upon the clover crop in the destruction which it wrought to various insect pests, and more especially the wire-worm, which now makes such increasing inroads upon our crops of wheat and barley, and so afterwards in the clover; so that bare patches, often of great extent, will be the consequence in every crop in the rotation. Now, these bare patches in the clover crop are often appealed to as evidence of clover-sickness, whilst we do not at the same time say that land is wheat-sick or barley-sick. Insects, indeed, are yearly becoming more destructive, not only on account of the difference in the mode of farming, but greatly from the determined destruction of birds. The food of birds is in general very mixed, but at one season of the year, when they are breeding, they are most industrious destroyers of insects; but it is just at this time that they are kept from the crops, exactly when insects are working the most mischief: hence, then, as the exigencies of a small growing family become more and more pressing, birds are driven to feed their young upon seeds, fruits, buds, and other vegetable matters, as unsuitable to build up the constitution of the young bird as bread diet for an infant. Let, however, our grand birds of prey be encouraged, instead of being shot by the keeper as vermin, or knocked over by the prowling bird-stuffer, in order to be perched up in a box for sale to some Cockney, who would fain be considered as fond of sport because his “den,” perchance, contains a stuffed owl, hawk, magpie, or some other _specimen_.