336 WEEDS OF AGRICI LTURE. 



much too general, and much too long persisted in, on such 

 light soils. 



Land of too low a quality for wheat after one year's seeds, 

 is but poor land ; but the breadth of it is very considerable 

 in the kingdom. After laying two years in seeds, some try 

 a naked fallow for wheat; but all their manure is wanted for 

 turnips, and these wheat crops are generally very thin and 

 short. Mr. Coke, of Holkham, after two years' lay, autumn 

 ploughs, and gets the tilth ready for peas, drilled at IS 

 inches ; after the peas, he drills wheat with rape cake, and 

 gets (or did get) good crops. But I should think that this 

 system is now at an end ; the present art of farming is to do 

 all that the soil will allow — but spare the pocket. 



To the foregoing very good advice, where it can be fol- 

 lowed, it is necessary to add a few practical observations, 

 which may be of use to those unacquainted with the natural 

 history of some of the annual weeds above named. 



It is well known that the seeds of charlock, poppy, and 

 camomile, lie for ages in the bowels of the earth uninjured ; 

 and it is only when brought near the surface, that they can be 

 made to vegetate, and then only under peculiar circum- 

 stances of the surface soil in which they lie. It has long- 

 been observed, that the prevalence of charlock and poppy 

 occur periodically. In one year every field will have an 

 abundant share of one or both of these weeds : and it some- 

 times happens, that for ten years at a stretch, neither will 

 appear in any injurious quantity. Hence the old saying, 

 " it is a charlock year," or it is " a red-weed year." Showing 

 that their appearance does not so much depend on the quan- 

 tity of seed in the ground, as on the favourable state and 

 condition of the soil, when it is sown with corn. 



Old farmers must have been very unobservant indeed, if 

 they had not been able to assign a good reason for this 

 periodical appearance of the weeds in question. But this is 

 not the case : a good experienced farmer will tell you, that, 

 if he were to lay in his wheat in a dry time, in a loose friable 

 soil, and leave it so to take its chance, he can with certainty 

 predict that his wheat will be overrun with the above, and 

 other annual weeds, in the following summer. To prevent 



