HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. {la 



ef the county, but in the Moorlands they reap it with hooks ; their 

 oates they harvest after the same manner with barley, their beans 

 and pease they reap with hooks, letting them lie in reaps ten QI 

 twelve days, and turning them onee the day before they carry them, 



Dr. Plot asserts, that in a light lean soile, wheat being sown, 

 in three years time it degenerated into rye ; and that in a strong 

 close soil, rye sown in the same space of time improved itself into 

 wheat, and that many having sown wheat and barley, have yet 

 reaped nothing but darnel; that barley did not only degenerate into 

 rye or darnel, but some times into oates too ; hence lie concludes 

 that a change of species sometimes takes place.* 



Ropes are asserted to have been made of the rind of rushes 

 stronger and more durable than of hemp ; also that about Sheii- 

 stone, they frequently used instead of hops to preserve their beer, 

 the common heath or ling (Erica vulgaris) which gave it no, ill 

 taste. 



As a proof of the superstition of those times, take the method 

 of curing the disease in cattle called the Fo.ule, which falling 

 into their leggs and feet, causes such impostumes or cores of pe- 

 trified matter, that they cannot go farr. They strictly observe the 

 turf where the oxe, cow, or heifer thus distempered, sets his sick 

 foot when he first rises in a morning, upon which they usually nn4 

 some of the sanies, or matter of the impostume, press't out by his 

 weight : this very turf, with the impression upon it, they cut up, 

 and hang upon a tree or hedge towards the north wind, which 

 blowing upon it, the beast becomes cured in three or fo.ur days ; and 

 this Dr. Plot was told was practised about Tamworth with good 

 success. 



I should suppose the learned Dr. Plot was imposed upon in the 

 .information he received on the following particulars, "It must 

 be ascribed to the saltness of the soile and grass, that if any horned 



* This I believe to be erroneous; a mongrel species may accidentally occur 

 by impregnation of the sexual parts of one species upon another, but very rarely, 

 as both male and female organs are in the same plant in all the varieties of grain 

 and pulse. Wheat mixed with rye and sown on a lean light soil, might perish, 

 and the rye succeed, without any change of species, and if darnel abounds 

 either in the soil, or the seed sown, it has a wonderful aptitude to increase 

 and to choke all other plants. I believe, if wheat was sown with one-tenth 

 darnel, little must be expected to be reaped but darnel itself; a bad soil of grain 

 sown may be expected to grow worse, and lean oats sown repeatedly upon hard 

 tilled land, would soon become all husk nearly. To produce the most perfect 

 grain, a good sort must be sown upon land iu a proper state to receive it. 



