VOL. XXVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. IQ 



latter end of February, or the beginning of March, if the season proves dry ; 

 if not, it is better to wait for a dry season ; for then only will the ground be fit 

 to receive the seed. With a hoe you must from time to time carefully cut up 

 the weeds. If they are not kept entirely under, much of the seed will be lost 

 for want of ripening. In very good land half a bushel of seed will be enough 

 to sow an acre. It will thrive best on a stiff clay; it will grow on any sort of 

 loamy land, rich enough to bear hemp. If you apprehend that the land is not 

 sufficiently strong, you will do well to allow from half a bushel to 7 gallons of 

 seed, to sow an acre with. 



The seed is ripe sooner or later, as the spring affords an early or late season 

 of sowing it. In some summers it is cut in August, but the most usual time is 

 after wheat harvest. When it is cut, it must in most years lie 5 or 6 days in 

 swarth, and then be turned, and lie till one side is dried and rotted as much as 

 the other, which may be about 4 or 5 days longer. 



The produce on land that is very good, is about 6 quarters per acre. If the 

 land be but indifferent, or if the weeds be not kept under, then from 4 to 5 

 quarters an acre is as much as you can expect. The price of seed is from 

 2l. to 61. per quarter; but the most usual price is from 40s. to 3l. It is diffi- 

 cult to thresh. So much of the seed as, after threshing, is beaten out, is to 

 be run through a wire sieve, such as is used to separate cockle from corn, and 

 the husks of every sifting, that will not pass through the sieve, are to be thrown 

 by in a heap, to be threshed over again. 



Extracts of several Letters from Mr, Edw. Llwyd, containing Observations in 

 Natural History and Antiquities, made in his Travels through Wales and Scot^ 

 land. Communicated by Dr. Hans Sloane, R. S. Seer, N^'SS/, art. g, p. 93. 



In the coal-pits of the forest of Dean, I found all the species of capillaries, 

 besides some other new plants; with two species of astropodium, gathered on 

 the Severn shore, the only rareties of the kind, I suppose, that have been dis- 

 covered. I doubt not but the coal plants have been observed by the workmen 

 long since, though they escaped the notice of naturalists. I find it well known 

 to all our country colliers by the name of carreg redynog, i. e. the ferny stone; 

 and Mr. Williams, Archdeacon of Cardigan, told me he had observed much 

 finer patterns 25 years since in the coal pits of Glamorganshire, than some that 

 I showed him. The whole braken that Kirkman mentioned was a noble curi- 

 osity; we saw none such in the forest; though we found them pretty large. 

 The stalks of fern and hartstongue I think we often met with, but cannot 

 say we saw any roots. We often met with the membranaceous substance of leaves. 



I have been very inquisitive about coins of the Princes of Wales, since I 



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