354 
In 1791 , the gold medal of the Society was given to this gentleman for 
raising above three hundred plants of the true Rhubarb from seed, and trans¬ 
planting them at four feet distance. 
Nathaniel Jarman, Esq. of Brenley-house in Kent, sowed sixty seeds, 
being part of those which were sent to the Society by Dr, Mounsey in 1/64; 
they produced forty-five plants. In 1784 he raised upwards of a hundred 
and twenty plants in the common ground, from seeds of the preceding year. 
He had sent to the Society two roots, weighing twenty-eight and thirty 
pounds: but this year he sent a single root, which weighed, when taken up 
on the l 6 th of October, fifty-six pounds: in a few days it lost four or five 
pounds, and on the 8 th of November, when it was weighed before a com¬ 
mittee, it was found to weigh only forty-five pounds. The largest root 
before produced to the Society by Sir Alexander Dick weighed forty-two 
Mr. Robert Davis the younger, of Minehead in Somersetshire, merchant, 
in the spring of the year 17 / 9 , sowed some seed of Rheum palmatum, which 
he received from Dr. Brocklesby, and planted out seven hundred and twenty 
of the plants, at the distance of five feet. The soil for the most part was 
sandy and light, the rest a deep black loamy garden ground. A great num¬ 
ber of plants on the first soil died; but those on the latter continued for the 
most part vigorous, and produced larger roots than the other, although not 
superior, if equal in quality. It did not appear that the distance of five feet 
in any respect incommoded or injured the most luxuriant plants. 
In the summer of 1783, the whole plantation was taken up, and the 
number of roots was near, if not quite four hundred. The whole produced 
three hundred pounds of dried Rhubarb, 
The gold medal of the Society was adjudged to Mr. John Ball, surgeon 
at Williton, in the parish of St. Decuman, in the county of Somerset, for 
raising in 1788 upwards of four hundred plants of Rheum palmatum , stand¬ 
ing six feet asunder each way. 
The following year having by the severity of the winter lost fifty of the 
four hundred and thirty plants above mentioned, he filled up the vacancies 
with young plants, and planted upwards of six hundred more at six feet 
apart, and about two hundred at four feet. For this additional plantation he 
received another gold medal. 
* Trans. Arts. Yol. X. p. 10 ]. 
t Idem, Yol. III. p, 174, 176. 
