208 Season of 1816, 



Buckland, Prince William county, (Va.) 



June llth, 1817. 



Sir, 



But little elucidation of the subjects of inquiry con- 

 tained in your public letter of the 5th mo. 30th, 1817, 

 can be expected from a part of the country where agri- 

 cultural improvements are so little advanced as in this. 

 We have indeed profited by the accidental intercourse 

 some of us have had with Pennsylvania, and derived 

 from thence the possession of the means, as far as expe- 

 rience has unfolded facts, of escaping the ravages of the 

 Hessian fly. The kind of wheat cultivated in Chester 

 county, in 1810 and previously, called Jones's white 

 wheat, was brought by James Lawler to Fauquier coun- 

 ty, in Virginia, in that year, where, and in the adjacent 

 counties, it has been since cultivated, without experi- 

 encing injury from the fly. This fact is established by 

 sundry certificates, published in the National Intelligen- 

 cer on the 5th inst. 



For a history of this variety of wheat, beyond Mr. 

 Lawler's information, we shall actually look to your quar- 

 ter, and anticipate, from the inquiry you have invited, the 

 gratification of an account of its origin. 



One of your inquiries conveys the supposition that the 

 purple straw, and golden beard wheats, resist the attacks 

 of the fly. The experience of this part of the country 

 is against the supposition. If it is the case in Pennsyl- 

 vania, where perhaps these kinds of wheat were lately in- 

 troduced, the circumstance discloses an important fact in 

 agriculture. 



