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Let us now proceed to the Minutes made fince January, 1776. February 2, 1776. The experiments made the 24th of September laft, on fpring feeds fown in autumn, ftand thus:

The beans which were covered, have not received much injury; but those which were expofed are as black as coal, and fome of them wholly deftroyed-the roots quite dead.

The oats.-The blades are much injured, but the roots feem perfect.

The fummer-tares which were obnoxious to the froft, are greatly hurt; but do not feem entirely destroyed.

But what furprifes me moft, the barley has flood the incle- ' mency of the weather better than a fellow patch of wheat, experimentally fown the fame day. I expected to have found it totally cut off; but I fee no other vegetables whatever look fo vigorously, winter-tares excepted; and thofe do not feem to have received the leaft injury.

The ketlock, which came up among the early-fown winter-tares, and which food above the fnow, is cut down to the ground.

Gates which fwung clear before the froft, dragged during the froft; but now again fwing clear. A foot path across D. 2. made at random in the fnow, is confiderably higher than the reft of the field. It looks as if it had been raised by art, at least an inch and a quarter higher than the adjoining turf. The fnow being there trod off, the frolt was permitted to penetrate deeper than here, where the coat of the fnow prevented its pe-" netration.

Frost no doubt expands; I had a water-bottle rent to fhivers, and the water totally confolidated in one night. The feparate pieces would not join by near half an inch.

I apprehend the furface which was freely expofed, was raifed near two inches. Sure this must be of fervice to a fliff foil: for though it fall again, it perhaps does not unite fo clofely as it did before the expanfion. Perhaps, its texture is fufficiently broken to admit the flender lacteal fibres. Perhaps fnow preferves the prefent crop; and froft prepares for the future.

Oxen. 26. To try the verfatility of oxen, I keep the horses at plow, and do the odd jobs with those. I find them carry out dung, bring home hay, carry in ftraw, collect firewood, or fetch in turneps and cabbages with the docility of horfes.

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Suflation. 27. (fee 29th of October, 1775) This evening the fame cow was blown again, by the fame aliment, cabbages, and was cured by the fame remedy, falt and water.

It feems fully proved, that falt and water will cure a fufflation; but I wish to know how it operates.'

May we here offer a hint on this fubject? Salt and water. we are told will cure a fufflation. Might not this diforder be prevented by sprinkling falt on the cabbages or other green fodder. given to cattle? Should it not even anfwer this purpose, yet it

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might have its ufes: it is faid to affift the fattening of both fheep and cattle; and we know experimentally it is of confiderable service to cows both in promoting milk, and improving the quality of it.

• Oxen,

• Whip-reins,

April 13, 1776. Yefterday began to land up N. 6. for barley, with foar oxen fingle, and • Semiculture, a team-plow. They did not make fo neat work as I wished for. Put two of them to a whip-rein plow, double; but continued to drive them with the whale-bone whip. They carried off their work more chearfully and

neater.

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Laft night I exercifed them in the yard with whip-reins; and to-day they have landed up a full acre into five-bout beds, without a driver.

I had no idea of their mouths being fo tender as they are; and expected, that it would have been neceffary to guide them by the rings (this was indeed an idea I conceived before I ever thought of a ring to tame them ;) but the bit is quite fufficient. I am confident, without partiality, that we have not two horses fo handy with whip-reins as the two oxen. We worked to day: and what is remarkable, they answer the whip-rein better than the whale-bone whip.

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Rolling beans. 28. Perhaps, rolling the foil before the • Rolling peas. beans come up is dangerous to the crop. If it be left unrolled, the clods become troublefome to the hoe, and by rolling on to the tender plants, are hurtful.

I was afraid that the roller would have injured the heads of the plants, and therefore only run it twice across the field experimentally After remaining a day or two, I could not perceive the leaft harm from the operation; but it was obviously a good preparative to hoeing: I therefore rolled the whole field They had just opened into broad leaf, which lay on the ground, and could not poffibly receive any injury from the roller.

To try the torture which infant beans can bear, I marked out three or four yards of one of the drills, indifcriminately. I first rubbed the plants between the fingers, till the leaves were perfectly bruifed, and as black as ink;-I then trampled them under foot, rubbing them hard with the foal of my fhoe.

This was laft Tuesday,-juft a week ago. At prefent, I cannot perceive that they have received the leaft real injury. The leaves, it is true, look rugged, as if eaten with flug or fly; but the stems are as high and as healthy as thofe of the neighbouring plants.

Therefore, beans, when their broad leaves lie flat on the ground, may be harrowed and rolled with fafety.

To prepare peale, too, for hoeing, 1 rolled them as they opened into broad leaf, and cannot perceive any evil attendant,

• Autumn

• Autumn-fown barley. July 21, 1776. Reaped it on Friday the 19th, but it was too ripe; it had itood three or four days too long. The crop was very even, and as good as could be expected from the quality and ftate of the foil.

• That which was expofed to the froft was obviously the beft; but I am at a lofs how to account for this circumftance. Perhaps the roots of fome large elms growing in the adjoining hedge, impoverished the foil; but this is mere conjecture: the contiguous tares are not the worse for them.

I do not fee why barley fhould not be fown in autumn, and reaped in the vacation between hay-time and wheat-harvest. Cabbages. 21. Finished planting yesterday.

The ground was fo firmly (perhaps neceffarily) confolidated by rolling, that it was laborious to make the holes with a handdibble; I therefore converted a potatoe-dibble into a cabbage foot dibble, which anfwered beyond expectation.

To regulate the distance in the rows, untwifted a gardenline at every two feet, and inferted a feather of two or three inches long. A line of 200 feet long was prepared in about ten minutes; and though it has been out wet and dry, not a feather is difplaced.

To regulate the distance between the rows, fixed a line, with three feathers, cross each end of the five bout bed to be planted; bringing the middle feather exactly into the middle of the bed. An acre and ths took about 13,000 plants.'

This method of planting cabbages is imperfect. In the northern parts of the kingdom, where the culture of this vegetable is carried to great perfection, the process is this: the land being previously ploughed into two-bout ridges, one perfon drops the plants two foot afunder on the crown of the ridge, another follows with a hand-dibble and plants them. In planting the first ridge the distance in the rows is regulated by a stick which the dropper carries in his hand. The plants on the fucceeding ridges are dropped by the eye, the dropper placing them oppofite or at angles with thofe already planted. This work is ufually performed by women or boys: it requires but little practice to be both expert and expeditious at it. Soon as the plants have taken root, the earth is ploughed from them, and the rows, if neceffary, are hand-weeded: in a few days the earth is ploughed back again. This horfehoeing is generally repeated when the plants begin to cabbage.

These Minutes, which are carried down to July the 15th, 1777, contain much useful information, intermixed with many trifling incidents. But without thofe trifling incidents the book would not have been what the author intended it, a real Sketch of private agriculture.

At the end of the Minutes the different articles are digefted under their respective heads. Amongst other articles there is a very important one which few, if any, writers before have attended to-- the hazard of farming. Those who are acquainted with farming in theory only form to themselves very imaginary pictures of it. They fuppofe it to be a pleasurable avocation, accompanied with certain profit. This by no means is the cafe. Its profits are frequently uncertain; and, as an avocation, we give full credit to our author when he afferts that it is laborioufty ferieus. With refpect to Mr. Marshall, as a far mer, we should do him injuftice not to remark that he is an attentive obferver, intelligent and enterprifing; and that he apparently relates facts with the moft fcrupulous regard to truth. Though, at the fame time, it is to be regretted that his Minutes take not in a longer period than three years; especially when it is confidered that his farm, which seems at best but an indifferent foil, was totally impoverished by the flovenly management of the preceding tenant. In fuch circumftances every one, who is acquainted with the subject, must know several years will elapte before any conclufions materially decifive can be drawn from the course of management which either our author, or any one elfe, could have adopted. He would have done well therefore to have been thoroughly inftructed in, what he calls, a fcience exceedingly abftrufe, before he had attempted to inftruct others. That he is a young farmer is evident from many parts of his book, independent of his own acknowlegement. He has certainly much to learn. And, indeed, after the following declaration, it is not to be wondered at, if in many points he ftill continue effentially ignorant. It is now upwards of feven yeats, fays he, fince the author ftudied any other book than the book of Nature. Great as our veneration is for that primary fource of all information, yet few people, we believe, are capable of studying it with much advantage, who depend folely on the light of their own minds for affiftance. If our author thinks himself one of thofe privileged few, we are forry to add he betrays a confidence which his prefent performance by no means feems to juftify. If all were to claim the fame privilege that he does, and all are equally intitled to it, we might afk him where is the use of writing on a fubject, which to be masters of, we need only ftudy the volume of nature ?

As a writer, his merits might have been paffed over in filence; but as it is that part of his character, on which he feems principally to value himself, that he may not think we overlook him, he shall speak for himfelf: The author, fays he, declares himself at open war with custom; excepting the cuf

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tom founded in nature, or at least fupported by reafon his ambition is to be ftigmatized with innovator; nay, he would even risk his being thought an aukward meddler, rather than add, to the crowd of decent copyifts.-He cannot fupprefs his difapprobation of thofe lifpers of Greek and Latin ;-thofe pompous displayers of learned trifles; nor of those evanefcent echoes of school philofophy, faint warbling through the grove of letters, to the injury of natural aud fcientific knowlege, and the annoyance of English literature.'-In confequence of this open war with custom, to almost every idea, complex or fimple, he gives a new term peculiar to himself; and to fhew his disapprobation of those lispers of Greek and Latin (and who they are amongst good writers we know not) these terms feem purposely compounded contrary to all claffical rule and analogy. What can be more to the annoyance of English literature than fuch terms as thefe? Naturifion, animalifion, vegetifion, aridage, verdage, animalifing ftraw, bean quondal, pea-quondal, wheat-quondal, &c. &c? And yet we are told these are elaborately-raised technical terms, as neceffary to a system of agriculture, as probiem and corollary are to the mathematics ! How few people feem really to know themselves! Mr. Marfhall, not contented to be, what, in fpite of his abfurdities, we cannot but think him, a man of plain fenfe and ufeful understanding, is perpetually labouring to be fomething more. This attempt continually leads him into pert fingularities, or aukward affectation, neither of which can be miftaken, by any thing but ignorance, for what he is defirous they should pass for, bright parts or original genius.

Biographia Britannica: or, the Lives of the most eminent Perfons who have flourished in Great Britain and Ireland, from the earliest Ages to the Prefent Times. The Second Edition, with Corrections, Enlargements, and the Addition of new Lives. By Andrew Kippis, D. D. and F. S. A. with the Affiftance of other Gentlemen. Vol. 1. Folio. 17. 11. 6d. boards. Bathurst.

WE

E have now before us a work of the greatest importance in the English language; a work, which will gradually encrease in value, in proportion to its duration; and which, with occafional improvements, will certainly be transmitted to the latest pofterity.

It is highly neceffary, that every new edition of this valuable work should be carefully revifed and improved, as a courfe of years imperceptibly deftroys a variety of temporary publications, which ferve to throw a light on the lives and writings of eminent men.

The

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