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which patches, wherever they appear, are always 

 accounted a certain and infallible prognostic of a had 

 crop of wheat; it having been remarked, that the 

 fields where these patches abound, do seldom if 

 ever recover : though it is otherwise in fields which 

 have not these patches in them, since with kindly 

 weather in June, the corn on these latter fields 

 often surmounts the mischief occasioned to the 

 blade by the vernal cold, according to the old pro- 

 verb current among the farmers, and expressed in 

 their homely lines, " I came to my wheat in May, 

 and went right sorrowful away: I came to my wheat 

 in June, and went away whistling a merry tune.'* 

 After a dripping summer, bread corn is generally 

 dear, as there is no weather so inimical to the wheat 

 on the ground as wet, especially on the deep rich 

 lands, where the largest crops are raised ; and even 

 on poor chalky soils, it is matter of doubt with 

 me, whether a wet summer be not rather injurious 

 than beneficial to the wheaten crop, though such 

 moist weather may haply increase the growth of 

 atraw. But although this reasoning generally holds 

 good, yet I have sometimes known the crops of 

 wheat turn out very prolific after a wet summer. 

 The year ]777 was one of the wettest that could 

 have been remembered, and the spring had been 

 uncommonly wet and chilly, so that the farmers, 

 from the great abundance of straw, and from an 

 observation of the unkindly state of the air through- 

 out the summer, expected that their wheaten crops 

 would turn out to bad account, and that conse- 

 quently 



