VERMIN. 
296 
places being different, and one farmer wishing to sell 
forasmuch money as another. In the Yale of Eve¬ 
sham, and about the neighbourhood of Worcester, 
where the quality is tine, the measure used is thirty-six 
quarts; but on the Cotswold Hills, and in cold climates, 
as part of Herefordshire, Shropshire, and Wales, it is 
thirty-eight or thirty-nine quarts ; which extra measure 
hardly makes out for the deficiency of quality, espe¬ 
cially in some wet seasons, it being late ripe on these 
cold lands, thick skinned of course, and seldom dry, 
or of a good colour. 
Mr. Oldacre further gives his opinion, that any ge¬ 
neral regulation by weight, would be much preferable 
to equalizing the measure, for several reasons ; but a 
most principal one is, it would be a much fairer way to 
set the assize of bread from, than from measure; for, it is 
very certain, that a bushel of wheat in Worcestershire, 
of the growth of a kindly season, will make, on the 
average, seven pounds of dough, or six pounds of 
bread, more than the produce of the same measure in 
an unkindly season. 
SECT. III.-VERMIN. 
Considerable injury is done to agriculture, and the 
productions and fruits of the earth, by various noxious 
insects and animals; these, as enemies to the subsis¬ 
tence of man, he is bound, on principles of self-de¬ 
fence, to oppose and destroy. 
The common red earth, or wire worm, is very in¬ 
jurious to pastures, by fouling them with its castings ; 
and, I suppose, to corn, clover, and other plants, by 
devouring 
O 
