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[ 147 J 
Perhaps /rong clays may furnifh objections to 
drilling, and particularly to drilling wheat. Un- 
doubtedly, the reafons given for drilling upon 
Wiltfhire hills do not apply to land of this de- 
feription; nor does fuch land require boeing, like 
the fandy foils. But it ought to be confidered, that 
nature fupplies the ufe of the drill-plough in {trong 
clays, efpecially under their favourite crop—‘ wheat.’ 
The clods, at the time of fowing, are a gage to de- 
termine the proper depth of every wheat corn; and 
the pulverization of thofe clods by the winter frofis 
and the March winds, is the hoeing of mature, in- 
ftead of that of ar/; and as in fuch foils the weeds 
are too few, and grow too flow, to doany mifchief, 
no other hoeing is in general wanted. 
It may be faid, that ‘time and experience will 
one day decide this argument; but reafon muft 
alfo be called in to determine how far the zufluence 
of particular feafons may affect experiments in par- 
ticular years. It is this influence, and not want of 
obfervation in farmers, that has hitherto prevented, 
and will always prevent, agriculture from being re- 
_ duced to one general invariable fyfiem. What 1s 
« right one year, and even for years together, may an- 
* other year be wrong;” and that farmer who hap- 
pens to fuffer feverely by purfuing a right /yflem in 
a wrong year, is thy of it for ever after; efpecially 
“if he has fuffered by deviating from any old mode, to 
which a popular opinion has been long attached. 
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