I.] OBSERVATIONS. 



certainly will be exceeded by the introduction of 

 the plant of which I am about to treat. It is 

 desirable that the crops of a country, whether for 

 human or for cattle food, should be of as many 

 sorts as can be usefully employed, and, if o^ grain, 

 coming to maturity at different parts of all the finer 

 seasons of the year. No one can so well appreciate 

 the advantage of this variety of crops, as he who 

 has been in countries where they are cultivated, 



7. All our grain, upon an average of years, 

 comes to perfection in the course of one single 

 month; so that, if that month happen to be 

 untoward, the whole of our crops receive great 

 injury; and sometimes the injury is so great, 

 as it has happened to be this very year, as to 

 produce an apprehension, if not real danger, of 

 something approaching towards famine. If the 

 evil do not extend thus far, it produces, at the 

 least, very great distress; and, as it may happen 

 in this very year also, and so it must always be, 

 in a greater or less degree, this evil produces great 

 embarrassment to the government ; and cases 

 may frequently arise, when the government, em- 

 barrassed from this cause, may be induced, and 

 even compelled, to endure insults and injuries 

 from foreign nations, to which, otherwise, it would 

 not have submitted. 



8. This simultaneous ripening of our crops of 

 grain, causes a very partial and injurious distri- 



