70 Essay on Weeds. 



that are periodically overflown, and irrigated meadows ; and, 

 5. of the different grasses and other plants adapted for the 

 alternate husbandry. There are two appendixes : the first 

 treating of the general impoverishing effects of plants to soils, 

 of the mode of converting tillage land to permanent pasture 

 by the process called transplanting turf, and a summary of the 

 grasses adapted for the alternate husbandry : — the second, — 

 of the grasses which afford the best culms for the manufacture 

 of straw bonnets, in imitation of the celebrated Leghorn 

 manufacture. 



The plates are numerous, and exceedingly well executed 

 by the lithographic process ; the size of the page admits their 

 delineation of such a magnitude as must render it easy for the 

 commonest shepherd or ploughman to recognise them. 



The Essay on Weeds is deserving the attention of the young 

 farmer, to whom it is inscribed by the editor. The first chapter 

 of this essay was perfected by Mr. Holdich, the rest was sup- 

 plied by Mr. Sinclair. 



The preface contains a short biography of Mr. Holdich, 

 highly interesting, as displaying the progress of his mind, and 

 the vicissitudes of his fortunes. He was the son of a farmer 

 near Ely, moderately educated, but much attached to reading; 

 spent seven years in America ; wrote two comedies there ; 

 came to England, and farmed in his native parish until 1813; 

 became editor of the Farmer's Journal, till the spring of 

 1824, when he died at the age of fifty- four, leaving various 

 unfinished literary works, and a widow and family. 



The term weed, as every gardener knows, is either abso- 

 lute or relative : there is no plant that may not become a 

 weed in the latter sense, by occupying a place not intended 

 for it. The wheat is a weed among oats. Absolute weeds are 

 such as docks and thistles, which are injurious in every cultivated 

 field. By the weeds of agriculture we are here to understand 

 the more common and injurious plants which infest arable 

 and grass lands. The former are arranged as 



1. Those which infest samples of corn; 2. root or fallow weeds, and 

 such others as are hard to destroy; 3. those which are principally objec- 

 tionable as they encumber the soil ; 4. underling weeds, such as never rise 

 with the crop, nor come into the sickle. Under these heads, each weed in 

 its respective division is treated of as to its deteriorating qualities and mode 

 of destruction. 



The weeds which infest the sample are, 



1 . Darnel (Bromus secalinus) ; 2. Cockle (Agrostemma githago) ; 5. Tares 

 (Ervum tetraspermum); 4. Melilot (Trifoliiim raelilotus officinale); 5. Wild 

 oats (Avena fatua) ; 6. Hariff (Galium aparine); 7. Crow needles (Scandix 

 pecten veneris); 8. Black bindweed (Polygonum convolvulus); 9. Snake 



