1808.] Monthly Agricultural Report—Naturalisi’s Report. 613 
it-among other plants with which it has the greatest number of points of resemblance. The 
figure here givenis far from being a good one, the-spikelets are much too broad; the awns tog 
stout, and divaricate too much; the stipnia is so badly represented that it looks as ifthe drafts- 
man had figured a small worm that happened to be curled about the stem, A comparison of 
this figure with that given by Curtis in his Flora Londinensis will be sufficient to show how 
badly, with respect to the drawings at least, tle English botany supplies the place of the for- 
mer. 2. Festuca Joliacea, grass, now and then very diflicult to be distinguished from Lolium 
perenne, more especially as the inner valve of the calyx is often very imperfect, and sometimes 
totally wanting. 3, Potamogeton matans, the common pond-weed, with which the surface of 
so Many of our stagnant pools are covered, affording, most probably, delightful shady groves 
to the finned inhabitants of the water, 4. Anagallis cerulea, usually considered as a variety of 
arvensis, as Dr. Smith himself has done in his Flora Britannica; but several of the species of 
Anagallis are so difficultly distinguished from each other, that this appears to have at least as 
good aclaim for this distinction as some others. If originally from the same stock, which ig 
yery dubious, we have no doubt, hut that the blue-flowered Pimpernel is now permanent and 
will be always reproduced from seed. 
We have not received the Paradisus Londinensis, or exotic botany, this month. 
MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
yN dry soils, a large breadth of land, has been already plowed up, for barley and peas. The 
green winter crops of wheat, tares, turnips, and rye, from the mildness of the weather 
look kind, and flourishing. Manuring meadows, hedging, and ditching have been also car- 
ried on toa great extent. 
Many hands are now employed in the barns, and in threshing-mills, which last are: to be 
found, on most large farms, and in general give satisfaction, doing their work effectually. 
The barley crop does net yield equal to expectation, but no deficiency has, as yet been expe- 
rienced in the wheat and oat crops already threshed.— Wheat averages throughout England 
and Wales, 70s. 83d. per quarter; Oats, 53s; and Barley, 38s. 11d. 
The straw proving short, and small in bulk, and a scarcity of fadder being expected, the 
prices of lean stock have been considerably reduced. This consideration brought immense 
droves to the late fairs and markets, where little business was however done, farmers fearing 
to make large purchases, and hay being dear. Cows and calves (for the time of the year), 
have been offered unusually loy.—In Smithfield market, Beef fetches from 5s, to 6s. per 
stone of 8lb. 3 Mutton, from 4s. 4d. to 5s. 4d.; Perk, from 4s. to 4s. 8d. 
Fresh Horses and porking Pigs obtain good prices, being much wanted. 
NATURAEIST’s MONTHLY REPORT. 
Vernantesque comas tristis ademit byems, 
Now, when the cheerless empire of the sky 
To Capricornthe Centaur archer yields, 
And fierce Aquarius strains th’ inverted year 3 
Hung o’er the farthest verge of Heaven, the Sun 
Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day. 
DURING a great part of the last month we have experienced a severity of weather by no 
means usual in the southern maritime ceunties of England. Inthe night of the 19th of 
November we had a considerable fall of snow; and the frost, betwixt that day, and the time 
Tam writing, (December 19) has, at intervals, been very intense. About the 7th of the pre- 
sent menth it was peculiarly severe; and towards the evening, and during the night of this 
day we had a continued shower of snow, greater than any that has been remembered for some 
years past. In the morning the snow was observed, in many places to be two and three feet 
deep. It continued upon the ground about five days. 
On the i9th of November the tide was particularly high in our harbours; and without any ap- 
parent cause. The old people say that, whenever this is the case, it is almost always followed 
bya gale of wind. The phenomenon is thus accounted fer. When the wind blows from the 
south, and is very boisterous out at sea, it drives the flowing tide with great violence, and con- 
sequently with considerable accumulation of water, to our shores, at a time when compara 
tively the weather may, perhaps, be there mild and calm: and in the course generally of a. 
few hours afterwards the gale follows from the same quarter. This was precisely the case on 
the 19th of November. “The water was unusually high in the evening without any wind, 
and during the course of the night we hada heavy storm of wind and rain fromthe south 
west, 
Nee December 
