100 
the beginning of June, and ends with 
the fecond week in October; and that 
July is the moft rainy month; the gene- 
ral average of the Julys being 22,7 inches, 
or above one third of the whole. The 
heavieft rain that fell during thefg eight 
years, was in 1782, on July 19, 6 inches, 
20th 20, 211 6,4. Your's,’ Se. 
Et A WELL-WISHER. 
SSS ee 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR; 
OBSERVING the propofed plan of 
your Magazine, to admit hints for 
IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURE, 
give me leave to mention a miftake, that 
I have often cbferved farmers to fall into, 
very much to the prejudice of their 
crops, their-own lots, and that of the 
public.—The miflake which I refer to, is 
that, in their own language, “ fome lands 
are fo natural to fome kinds of weeds, 
that there 1s no means of getting clear of 
them,’ and therefore they remain fatil- 
fied under. that notion, and fubmit, 
year after year, to their lands being over- 
run with weeds, and their crops choak- 
ed, and {mothered, in fo deftruétive a 
manner, as to produce but half the 
quantity they otherwile would have done. 
f entered upon fome lands many years 
ago, that were remarkable for having 
the crops always full of wild hemp, 
docks, and feveral other kind of weeds, 
which the former occupier fuppofed 
** were uatural to the land,” as he called 
it, and could not be extirpated, though 
he fometimes made fallows and fowed 
turnips. As foon as I had got off my 
firft ¢rep of corn, early in the autumn, I 
ploughed the land over, and reduced it 
very fine with the roll and harrow, by 
which means I fet great part of the feed 
of the weeds that were in thé foil at 
Nberty, and by thus fetting them a- 
growing, there fprung up an unutually 
large crop of them.—After fome time, 
when I perceived no frefh ones coming 
up, I ploughed the land over again, and 
treated it as before. It then lay tll 
{pring, by which time there was an ap- 
pearance of another luxuriant crop of 
different forts of weeds. 
In the fpring, the Jand was again 
ploughed two or three times, at proper 
Intervajs, and each time treated as above 
deféribed; till the whole foil, as-far as 
the plough marked, was fo pulverifed, 
that the wla'e of it would have paffed 
through a fieve. Phe Jand was then 
manured and fowed with turnips, which 
proved a very excellent crop.—After 
Method of clearing Land of Weeds. 
[March 
this crop was eat off, in the fubfequent 
{pring, the land was ploughed, and treated 
as before, and fowed a fecond time with 
turnips; for, when the land .has been 
long fubjeét to weeds, and the foil is full - 
of feeds, with every endeavour, they can- 
not all be made to vegetate the firft year. 
However, by this method, which I have 
frequently praétifed, the land has been 
put into fuch a ftate, that all the feeds 
which lay within the reach of the plough 
might wegetate, and, confequently, the 
land has at length become exhaufied of 
them. By this means, Iam clear, fromre- 
peated experience, that wild oats, and 
every fpecies of weeds, may be extirpated 
from the land, and that it will not be after- 
wards fubjeét to them, unlefs, indeed, 
fome ftragglers fhould be fuffered to go to 
feed, and by that means produce a future 
crop; to prevent which, jome attention, 
and a very {mall expence, is required. 
It is furprifing to what a great depth 
in the ground the feeds of weeds will 
fink, in time, by the pores of the earth, 
opened (as 1 fhould {uppote) by frofts 
and drought; and alfo, to what a length 
of time they will lie in that flate, and 
yet vegetate when they are brought 
within the influence of the air, and the 
foil is putin a proper ftate for them !— 
I had a piece of land fome years ago, 
which, when ploughed, was very fubjeét 
to a weed, well known to moft farmers, 
by the name of Ked/ock; which I en- 
tirely cleared, by the means | have here 
defcribed.—About twenty years after- 
wards, it bemg wet in jome parts, and 
{ubje€ét to fprings, I caufed it to be hol- 
low-drained, and by going much lower 
with the fpade, than the plough had 
ever reached, difturbed and railed u 
fome of the feeds, which had probably 
lain there fecure for ages: the conle- 
quence was, that by the fides of the 
drains, the kedlock came up again, much 
thicker than it had ever done before—I 
recolleét, upon ploughing up a piece of 
old turf, which had not been ploughed 
fer more than forty years, on examining 
the foil, finding many of the feeds of 
kedlock and cther weeds, as found as if 
they had been depofited there’only the 
featon before; and the fucceeding crop 
from the piece was full of thole weeds, 
and continued to be fo, till I had ex- 
haufied them by the means above-men- 
tioned. . ‘ 
When land has been-long fubjeét to 
docks, and has afterwards been treated 
as above, and laid down for a few years, 
many young ones will poflibly {pring UP 5 
sOx. 
