INTRODUCTION. 



sertion. — " I cannot," said his Lordship, " help acknowledging the pro- 

 " priety of confining the business of the present meeting, as much as 

 « possible, to its original objects ; yet must beg leave to divert the at- 

 " tention of the land-owners present, for a moment, to the great impor- 

 " tance of supplying our navy with Hemp, the importation of which from 

 " the Baltic is now unhappily interdicted : and although an excellent sub- 

 <e stitute is known in the Bengal Sunn Hemp, should this hereafter fail 

 (C supplying the wants of our navy, I trust, that as hemp is proved to be 

 " an excellent preparation for a wheat crop, and to interfere little with 

 ts the established system of husbandry upon strong soils, except in the 

 " growth of beans, for which it must be substituted, that the land- 

 " owners will be found ready to forward the views of Government, in 

 " raising this most essential article upon our own soils, by relinquishing 

 " the restrictions in their leases against the growth of a vegetable, which 

 " is now proved by experience not to exhaust the soil more than other 

 " crops, when not left to ripen its seed." 



In addition to these valuable remarks of the Noble Agriculturist, it 

 is worthy of note, that Hemp is stated to possess the excellent property of 

 expelling caterpillars from cabbage-plantations ; and, on this account, it 

 has been recommended as a certain preventive of the depredations com- 

 mitted by those vermin, that all the borders of the ground, where it is 

 intended to plant cabbages, be sown with Hemp j and, however the 

 vicinity may be infested by caterpillars, the grand inclosure (it is affirmed) 

 will be found to be perfectly free from them. Where tenants, therefore, 

 are restricted by special covenants in their leases from sowing Hemp-crops, 

 it may nevertheless be worth their while to make the above experiment 

 on those borders of their fields, which would otherwise lie perhaps un- 

 cultivated : and if this practice, being proved to be successful, were ge- 

 nerally 



