Figeom — 1 Feeding. ' 173 



reduced, attributed it to the vast quantity 

 of pigeons kept among them, which, on such 

 account, by a general resolution, they 

 agreed to destroy. A few seasons after- 

 wards, it seems, they found their land so ex- 

 hausted, and their crops so eaten up by 

 weeds, that they came to a general wish for 

 their pigeons back again. Now this is 

 either a lame story, or the farmers impli- 

 cated, were very lame farmers, as beirg 

 ignorant how to weed their land, without 

 the assistance of instruments, the use of 

 which must cost them so considerable a 

 part of their crops. 



No man, in tlie least acquainted with 

 country affairs, but is fully aware of the 

 immense damage done to the crops of corn, 

 beans, pease, and tares, that is to say, the 

 grand articles of human subsistence by 

 pigeons. Our best practical agricultural 

 writers may be consulted on this head, 

 but a sufficient proof of the fact is tke 

 reduction of dove cots throughout all coun- 

 tries where agriculture is best known, 

 valued, and practised. Indeed, the feudal 



