The Natural History of Se I borne 467 



BEANS SOWN BY BIRDS. 



MANY horse-beans sprang up in my field-walks in the autumn, 

 and are now grown to a considerable height. As the Ewel 

 was in beans last summer, it is most likely that these seeds 

 came from thence ; but then the distance is too considerable 

 for them to have been conveyed by mice. It is most probable 

 therefore that they were brought by birds, and in particular 

 by jays and pies, who seem to have hid them among the grass 

 and moss, and then to have forgotten where they had stowed 

 them. Some pease are growing also in the same situation, 

 and probably under the same circumstances. WHITE. 



CUCUMBERS SET BY BEES. 



IF bees, who are much the best setters of cucumbers, do not 

 happen to take kindly to the frames, the best way is to tempt 

 them by a little honey put on the male and female bloom. 

 When they are once induced to haunt the frames, they set all 

 the fruit, and will hover with impatience round the lights in a 

 morning, till the glasses are opened. Probatum est. WHITE. 



WHEAT. 



A NOTION has always obtained that in England hot summers 

 are productive of fine crops of wheat; yet in the years 1780 

 and 1781, though the heat was intense, the wheat was much 

 mildewed, and the crop light. Does not severe heat, while the 

 straw is milky, occasion its juices to exude, which being extra- 

 vasated, occasion spots, discolour the stems and blades, and 

 injure the health of the plants ? WHITE. 



