286 On Steeping Wheat. Aug, 



I amufed myfelf, more efpecially after rain, with pulling up the 

 young plmts. This happened laft year, 1802; and, beinjr tolerably 

 tiilit^eiit, I was to fortunate as not to leave, as far as I know, one 

 plant behind •, for in all my walks this year, 1 803, in the fame field, 

 and ufcd for the fame purpofe, I have never been able to find a 

 finale plant. The grafs continuing excellent, I mean to pafture 

 a third year ; and afterwards to throw it into the general rotation 

 of my farm. 1 certainly do not expect, next time it is thrown 

 into grafs, to find this field free from whins and bronm ; but I 

 furely expe6l to find the -numbers of thefe plants much dimi- 

 iiifiit'd ; at leaft, I have prevented, with certainty, any additional 

 feeds being communicated to the foil. 



I happen to be in a proverbial humour, and beg leave to re- 

 commend, to the attention of my brother farmers, an old faw : 

 * Once feeding caufes feven years weeding. * 



This is a text upon which many excellent agricultural fermons 

 miejht be compofed \ and, for one of thefe, the fubjecl: of this 

 upparently unimportant communication is no bad illuftration. 



From my own perfonal experience, in the field of which I 

 now write, I am perfectly fatisfied that a child of ten years old 

 is capable, in a very few days, after a good foaking rain, to pull 

 up as many feedling plants as ufually grow upon twenty acres of 

 land. After the land is brought into that (late of fertility as to 

 undergo a regular rotation, along with the reft of a tillage farm, 

 this practice may not be fo neceilary ; as tillage, efpecially the 

 fallow break, will undoubtedly kill thefe feedlings, before they can 

 run up to feed. But I will now venture to lay down the fouleft 

 whinny or broomy knoll in Britain, into pernianent grafs ; and 

 free it, with certainty, from whins and broom, in two or three 

 years, for half a crown the ten acres. 



Merfe^ November 1803. R. r. 



On Steeping Wheat, 

 Sir, 



Observing, in laft Magazine, a paper * On the Smut in 

 Wheat, ' figned A. S., wherein the author, after quoting an 

 experiment by Sir John Call, concludes with an opinion, that 

 wafhing or pickling is no remedy againft this baneful diforder ; 

 — In contradiction of which, I can, from nineteen years experi- 

 ence, avouch, that I fcarcely ever fowed the end of a ridge with 



dry 



