365 
has been carried into execution, but not with the degree of success that 
ought, and might have been expected to attend so extensive an experiment. 
It must be confessed, that had I been at all aware what an almost Her¬ 
culean labour I was about to encounter, I really suspect whether my resolu¬ 
tion would have been equal to the task. Lest, however, this should discou¬ 
rage others from prosecuting this object, it is necessary to be more explicit. 
Difficulties, and such indeed as are considerable, must necessarily attend 
most undertakings which have been hitherto unattempted; but the disap¬ 
pointments I sustained, though more numerous than generally fall to the 
share of a person under such circumstances, did not all arise out of the under¬ 
taking itself, but from causes, some of which may be easily guarded against 
in future, while others may never again occur. 
Two years have passed in producing what, I flatter myself, the Society 
will consider deserving their premium, particularly if I am enabled to render 
the operation much more simple than may at first sight be supposed. 
The claimant, I observe, is required to submit to the Society his parti¬ 
cular method of cultivating the Poppies. As the mode adopted in the present 
instance arose rather from necessity than choice, I must go back as far as the 
autumn of 1797 > t0 show how it happened. 
Five acres of ground and upwards, situated in the parish of Enfield, in 
the county of Middlesex, I appropriated to this experiment, at the period 
above-mentioned; which, being ploughed several times previous to the fol¬ 
lowing March, were then sown broad-cast; and the weather proving favour¬ 
able, the seed soon vegetated, and appearances were very promising. From 
the neglected state of the land, however, to which I was unfortunately a 
stranger, such a profusion of weeds sprang up among them, that, after many 
fruitless efforts at recovery, I was under the mortifying necessity of plough¬ 
ing them all up together. This circumstance not taking place till the latter 
end of April, the season for resowing was elapsed; and as to cropping my 
field with oats or barley, a measure very strongly recommended to me, I 
considered it as a deviation from my original purpose, and therefore, without 
paying any attention to it, gave the field a summer-fallowing, conceiving 
that Poppies might be sown with equal and perhaps greater advantage in 
autumn. 
Finding that the broad-cast method of sowing precluded the possibility 
of hoeins where the land is much infested with weeds, I now adopted a dif- 
4 Z 
