118 



during which I have been making experiments on, and 

 cultivating Fiorin Grass, new properties and appHcations of 

 this curious vegetable were pei-petually occurring ; and 

 of these some of the latest will probably be found by far 

 the most important. 



At the same time 1 must confess, that some of the appli- 

 cations and practices, which were at first so promising as 

 to induce me to recommend them to the world in the 

 strongest manner, I have since been obliged to abandon ; 

 finding that in the practice of years, the plant abated gra- 

 dually of the luxuriance it first exhibited under them, 

 shewing, after some time, that they were not to be persisted 

 in with prudence. 



Of other applications of fiorin grass, upon which I was 

 at first very sanguine, I begin to entertain doubts, which 

 I think it incumbent on me fairly to state, leaving the 

 questions open to future amateurs to investigate, using 

 my own best endeavours to bring them to issue, if I can, 

 in my own time; contenting myself, at present, with stating 

 them openly, with my reasons for expecting favourable 

 decisions, and also my reasons for doubting. 



From these concessions it may be inferred, that I am re- 

 linquishing the high expectations I had entertained of the 

 benefits to be derived from my discovery, lowering my 

 tone, and receding from the lofty promises I had so often 

 made to the world. 



This may be partly true ; but on the other hand I boldly 

 say, that my conviction of the value of this grass has never 

 been on the wane, and that from May 1806, when I 

 first began to make observations upon it, until this moment, 

 my expectations of the benefits to be derived from the 

 discovery of fiorin, have been increasing, and my hopes at 

 the end of every successive year more sanguine; — for, 

 though I was obliged to give up some uses and apphca- 



