C 36° J 
In December 1796, a few days after I had at- 
tended the general meeting of the Bath Agricultural 
Society, where I heard the fubje& of drill hufbandry 
very flightly fpoken of, I went into Gloucefterfhire 
on a vifit to a gentleman of my acquaintance near 
W otten-Underedge, and walking with him through 
a wheat ftubble, I obferved it had been irregularly 
drilled at one foot afunder, and which he told me 
had been done by his labourer and his familys The , 
labourer, by my defire, was fent for, and informed 
me it had been the common prattice of the neigh- 
bourhood ever fince he could remember, and he had 
heard his father make the fame remark, and from 
what I could trace, it muft have been upwards of 80. 
years: he deferibed the method as follows: —The 
fallow being prepared, (this was a clover ftubble once 
ploughed, dragged, and harrowed) fhallow furrows 
were opened at a foot afunder with the common 
plough, and in thefe the feed was fown by women 
and children from phial bottles, and after fowing, 
the lands were harrowed lengthways. Quantity of 
feed one bufhel per acre, expence of drilling 6s. The 
fpace between each row was dug with a hoe, or 
{mall mattock, in the next {pring, in order to deftroy: 
weeds, &c. Theman very gravely aflerted, that no 
clean wheat could be got in their neighbourhood by 
any other mode, the foil being fo very fubjeé to 
weeds. Here then is a ftrong proof of the drill fyf- 
tem prevailing under heavy expences, and an auk- 
D 2 ward 
