MORRIS BIRKBECK, ESQ. 



would not. But, if well managed, it would produce a prodigious 

 crop of materials for reed-hedges and thatch. It is of a sub 

 stance (I mean the main stalk) between that of a cane and that of a 

 reed. It has joints precisely like those of the canes, which you 

 may have seen the Boroughmongers sons and footmen strut 

 about with, called bamboos. The seed-stalks, which make the 

 brooms and brushes, might not get so mature in England as to be 

 so good as they are here for those uses : but, I have no doubt, that, 

 in any of the warm lands in Surrey, or Kent, or Hampshire, a man 

 might raise upon an acre a crop worth several hundred pounds. 

 The very stout stalks, if properly harvested and applied, would last 

 nearly as long as the best hurdle rods. What beautiful screens 

 they would make in gardens and pleasure grounds ! Ten feet 

 long, and straight as a gun stick ! I shall send some of the seed 

 to England this year, and cause a trial to be made ; and I will, 

 in my Gardening Book, give full instructions for the cultivation. 

 Of this book, which will be published soon, I would, if you lived 

 in this world, send you a copy. These are the best uses of maritime 

 intercourse : the interchange of plants, animals, and improve 

 ments of all sorts. I am doing my best to repay this country for 

 the protection which it has given me against our indemnified 

 tyrants. &quot; Cobbett s pigs and Swedish Turnips,&quot; will be talked 

 of long after the bones of Ellenborough, Gibbs, Sidmouth, 

 Castlereagh and Jenkinson will be rotten, and their names for 

 gotten, or only remembered when my &quot; trash &quot; shall. 



1044. This is a rambling sort of Letter. I now come back to 

 the Broom- Corn for thatch. Sow it in rows about five feet 

 asunder ; or, rather, on ridges, a foot wide at the top, with an 

 interval of five feet : let the plants stand all over this foot wide, 

 at about three inches apart, or less. Keep the plants clear of 

 weeds by a couple of weedings, and plough well between the 

 ridges three or four times during the summer. This will make the 

 plants grow tall, while their closeness to each other will make 

 them small in thickness of stem or stalk. It will bring them to 

 about the thickness of fine large reeds in England, and to about 

 twice the length ; and, I will engage, that a large barn may be 

 covered, by a good thatcher, with the stalks, in two days, and that 

 the covering shall last for fifty years. Only think of the price of 

 shingles and nails ! Only think of the cost of tiles in England ! 

 Only think of the expence of drawing or of reeding straw in 

 England ! Only think of going into the water to collect reeds in 

 England, even where they are to be had at all, which is in a very 

 few places ! The very first thing that I would do, if I were to 

 settle in a place where I had buildings to erect, would be to sow 

 some Broom-Corn ; that is to say, sow some roofs. What a fine 

 thing this would be upon the farms in England ! What a con 

 venient thing for the cottagers ! Thatch for their pretty little 

 houses, for their styes, for their fuel-house, their cow-shed ; and 

 brooms into the bargain ; for, though the seed would not ripen, 



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