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several times, and alwaj's succeeded. Many respectable 

 persons called to witness the process. Among the rest, 

 the Marquis of Downshire, Viscount North- 

 JLAND, and General M*Kenzie, who all saw the still 

 run, and tasted the spirits. 



I once tried carefully what spirits I could produce from 

 a given quantity of hay, and obtained one quart double 

 spirits from twenty-one pounds of dry hay. I do not 

 state this as a claimant to the credit of having discovered 

 a new source from which alcohol can be obtained ; but 

 as a strong, though indirect proof of the great quantity of 

 saccharum contained in florin, as vegetable saccharuni is the 

 chief, perhaps the sole material, from wliich all our ardent 

 spirits are extracted. 



I proceed now, as I promised, to state the instances in 

 which fiorin hsiS failed to produce the advantages I ex- 

 pected to derive from it, of which I had boasted to the 

 world, and to enumerate my practices and application of 

 this grass, which I have been obliged to abandon, after 

 having long entertained most sanguine hopes of the great 

 advantages that would be derived from them. 



I commence with Irrigation ; a practice carried on in 

 England some centuriesago bythe Monks with greatskill 

 and spirit, as appeared by the works found on the monaster}' 

 lands by the grantees of Henry VIII., which they neither 

 understood nor attempted to make use of, like their pre- 

 decessors, who seem to have been most knowing on the 

 subject. 



Irrigation, as now practised iu England, was the dis- 

 covery of oneKowLAND Vaughan, who (as he tells us) 

 got the hint from a mole, who, perforating an embank- 

 ment, let a small stream run down a declivity, the verdant 

 sole being much enlivened wherever the water ran. 



