300 
OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 
between the rows of hops with a small triangular harrow, drawn 
by one horse, and guided by two handles. This occurrence 
brought to my mind the following passage. 
" ipsa 
Flecteie luctantes inter vineta juvencos." Georgic II. 
Hops are diecious plants : hence perhaps it might be proper, 
though not practised, to leave purposely some male plants in 
every garden, that their farina might impregnate the blossoms. 
The female plants without their male attendants are not in their 
natural state : hence we may suppose the frequent failure of crop 
so incident to hop-grounds ; no other growth, cultiv^ated by man, 
has such frequent and general failures as hops. 
Two hop gardens much injured by a hail-storm, June 5, show 
now (September 2) a prodigious crop, and larger and fairer hops 
than any in the parish. The owners seem now to be convinced 
that the hail, by beating off the tops of the binds, has increased 
the side-shoots, and improved the crop. Query. Therefore 
should not the tops of hops be pinched off when the binds are 
very gross, and strong ? 
SEED LYING DORMANT. 
The naked part of the Hanger is now covered with thistles of 
various kinds. The seeds of these thistles may have lain pro- 
bably under the thick shade of the beeches for many years, but 
could not vegetate till the sun and air were admitted. When 
old beech trees are cleared away, the naked ground in a year or 
two becomes covered with strawberry plants, the seeds of which 
must have lain in the ground for an age at least. One of the 
siidders or trenches down the middle of the Hanger, close 
covered over with lofty beeches near a century old, is still called 
strawberry slidder, though no strawberries have grown there in 
the memory of man. That sort of fruit did once, no doubt, 
abound there, and will again when the obstruction is removed.* 
BEANS SOWN BY BIRDS. 
Many horse-beans sprang up in my field-walks in the autumn, 
* In like manner, when the woods are cleared in many parts of North America, a thick growth 
of red cedar, a species of juniper, makes its appearance, though none had been previously noticed 
in the neighbourhood, from which it appears that seeds may lie dormant for an indefinite period, 
till circumstances induce them to germinate. So also soil, turned up from some depth, gentirall}' 
produces plants not previously observed in the vicinity. — Ed. 
