is of no consequence when intended to be potted, as it goes off in a short time. Parsneps are dangerous food for sows before they farrow, and might occasion them to lose their litter. Hogs may be fattened with them in about six weeks. It is the custom during that time to thicken their swill with the meal of beans and oats ground together. Pork fattened in this way is very firm, and does not waste in boiling. Horned cattle may be fattened with parsneps in about three months. I never knew them used for sheep. It is the general opinion in the island, that hogs or cattle fed on parsneps, may be brought to a condition for slaughtering, in less time, and with half the quantity, that would be required of potatoes. The butchers are sensible of the superiority of the former, and will give a halfpenny per pound more for cattle fattened with them, than for such as have been fed any other way. Upon inquiry, I was informed, they always contained a greater quantity of tallow. This I believe to be a full account of the culture and use of the parsnep, and a just comparison with the potatoe. known from time immemorial; the wild or ungrafted chesnut is called in French châtaignier, the grafted or cultivated sort, maronnier. Though the grafting of chesnuts has been little, if at all used in this part of the island, it is not an uncommon practice in Devonshire, and other western counties. The nurserymen there deal in grafted chesnut-trees, and the gentlemen have no doubt introduced them into their gardens. About sixteen years ago, Sir William Watson sent some of these grafted trees from Devonshire to Spring Grove, with an assurance, that the fruit would be plentiful and good. They were at first neglected and ill treated, owing to the disinclination most gardeners have to the introduction of novelties, the management of which they are unacquainted with: it was, therefore, six or seven years before they began to bear fruit. Since that time, as the trees have increased in size, the crop has every year become more abundant; last autumn, the produce, though they are only six in number, was sufficient to afford the family a daily supply from the beginning of November till after Christmas. The nuts are much smaller than the Spanish imported fruit, but they are beyond comparison sweeter to the taste. The crops are little subject to injury, except from very late frosts. The trees are in general covered with blossoms to a degree that retards their annual increase. They are now so low, that a part of the crop is gathered from the ground, and the remainder by a step-ladder. They require no care or attendance on the part of the gardener, except only the labour of gathering the fruit. Most people prefer the taste of the fruit to that of the imported, but there can be no doubt that, when the usage of gafting ches nuts becomes common in this country, grafts of all other sorts will in due time be procured from the continent. The kernels of these chesnuts, and of all others ripened in England, are more liable to shrivel and dry up than those imported, owing to a deficiency of summer heat in our climate to mature the fruit; this must be guarded against by keeping the nuts always in a cool place, rather damp than dry; the vessel best suited to preserve them is an earthenware jar with a cover; this will not only keep them cool, but it will restrain the loss of moisture without entirely preventing perspiration, and thus endangering the loss of vitality, the immediate consequence of which is the appearance of must and mouldiness. ON THE CULTIVATION AND MA- From the Bath and West of Woad is a plant which, combined with indigo, gives the best and most permanent blue dye hitherto discovered. It is of great importance to our commerce, as well as to agriculture, being in nature one of the best preparers of land for a corn crop that has hitherto been discovered; and, if the land is properly chosen for it, and well managed, will be found very profitable, more particularly at this time, when its price is advanced to almost an unprecedented degree: therefore I conceive that in rendering its cultivation and preparation better known and understood, it may be greatly beneficial to the nation. I have the honour to be a member of the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society, where many noble and exalted characters unite their talents to promote the public benefit. And to one of its earliest and most respectable members I presume to address this information. I have been many years a considerable consumer of woad, and have also cultivated it with much success; and though I am well experienced in the usual method of its preparation, I was induced to depart from it in consequence of the great waste of its juices in the old method of grinding and balling. But I shall endeavour to give instructions for carrying on each process, and leave those who shall undertake it to proceed as they think best. This plant is cultivated in different parts of England for the use of the dyers, as well as in France, Germany, &c. It is best to sow the seeds in the month of March, or early in April, if the season invite, and the soil be in condition to receive it; but it requires a deep loamy soil, and is better still with a clay bottom, such as is not subject to become dry too quickly. It must never be flooded, but situated so as to drain its surface, that it may not be poisoned by any water stagnant upon it. If (at any reasonable price) meadow land to break the turf can be obtained, it will be doubly productive. This land is generally freest from weeds and putrid matter, though sometimes it abounds with botts, grubs, and snails. However, it saves much expense in weeding; and judicious management will get rid of these otherwise destructive vermin. A season of warm showers, not too dry or too wet, gives the most regular crop, and produces the best woad. If woad is sown on corn-land, much expense generally attends hoeing and weeding: and here it will require strong manure, though on leys it is seldom much necessary, yet land cannot be too rich for woad. Onrich land dung should be avoided, particularly on leys, to avoid weeds. Some people sow it as grain, and harrow it in, and afterwards hoe it as turnips, leaving the plants at a distance in proportion to the strength of the land: others sow it in ranks by a drillplough; and some dibble it in (in quincunx form, by a stick with a peg crossways, about two, or two and a half inches from the point, according to the land), putting three or four seeds in a hole, and these holes to be from twenty inches to two feet apart, according to the richness of the land; for good land, if room be given, will produce very luxuriant plants in good seasons; but if too nearly planted, so that air cannot circulate, they do not thrive so well; attention to this is necessary in every way of sowing it. I have been most successful in this last process. Woad very often fails in its crop, from the land not being in condition, or from want of knowing how to destroy the botts, snails, wire-worms, &c. that so often prey upon and destroy it, as well as from inattention to weeding, &c. Crops fail also from being sown on land that is naturally too dry, and in a dry season; but as the roots take a perpendicular direction and run deep, such land as I have described (with proper attention to my observations) will seldom fail of a crop; and if the season will admit sowing early enough to have the plants strong before the dry and hot weather comes on, there will be almost a certainty of a great produce. These plants are frequently destroyed in the germination by flies, or animalculæ, and by grubs, snails, &c. as before observed; and in order to preserve them, I have steeped the seeds with good success, in lime and soot, until they began to vegetate; first throwing half a load or more of flour lime* on the acre, and harrowing it in. Then plant the seeds as soon as they break the pod, taking care not to have more than one day's seed ready for it is better to be too early, than to have their vegetation too strong before it is planted, lest they should receive injury; yet I have never observed any injury in mine from this, though I have often seen the shoot strong. Either harrows or rollers will close the holes. If the ground be moist it will appear in a few days; but it will be safe, and a benefit to the land, to throw more lime on the surface, when, if showers invite snails and grubs to * If the seeds are not sown within a day after the time, it will lose much effect. eat it, they will be destroyed, which I have several times found; particularly once, when the leaves were two inches long, and in drills very thick and strong, but the ground was dry. When a warm rain fell, in less than two hours I found the ranks on one side attacked by these vermin, and eaten entirely off by a large black grub, thousands of which were on the leaves, and they cleared as they went, not going on until they had destroyed every leaf where they fixed. They had eaten six or seven ranks before I was called by one of my people to observe it. Having plenty of lime, I immediately ordered it in flour to be strewed along those ranks which were not begun. This destroyed them in vast numbers, and secured the remainder. Another time, having had two succeeding crops on four acres of land, I considered it imprudent to venture another. However, as the land after this appeared so clean and rich, I again ventured, but soon found my error. On examining the roots (for after it had begun to vegetate strong, it was observed to decay and wither) I found thousands of the wire-worm at them, entwined in every root. I immediately strewed lime (four loads, of six quarters each, on the four acres), and harrowed it; when rain coming on soon after, washed it in, and destroyed them all, and gave me an extraordinary crop; but the first sown side of the field, where they had begun, never quite recovered like the rest. And I am fully satisfied, that when the grub is seen in wheat, &c. the same treatment (if the weather suited) would destroy them all, as well as VOL. LIII. change the nature of the land. I need not enter on the wide and extensive field of observations on the causes of weeds, grubs, &c. (which so often counteract the labours of the husbandman), that occur so differently in different seasons, and after different treatment and improper crops-further than to observe, that when your land has not a proper change, then it is that these are experienced in a more destructive degree. Further, it is in vain to expect a good crop of woad, of a good quality, from poor and shallow land. The difference of produce and its value is so great, that no one of any experience will waste his labour and attention on such lands upon so uncertain a produce. Warm and moist seasons increase the quantity every where, but they can never give the principle which only good land affords. In very wet seasons, woad from poor land is of very little value. I once had occasion to purchase at such a time, and found that there was no possibility of regulating my vats in their fermentation; and I was under the necessity of making every possible effort to obtain some that was the produce of a more genial season. I succeeded at last; but I kept the other three and four years, when I found it more steady in its fermentation; but still it required a double quantity, and even then its effect was not like that from good woad. At this time several dyers experienced much difficulty, and one of eminence in the blue-trade suffered so much by woad of his own growth, that he declared his resolution to decline the trade altogether. When I pointed out to 2 L him that it was the woad that occasioned his bad blues, and that I had from the same defect purchased such other woad as would do, and informed him where he could get it, he succeeded as usual. His own he disposed of to a drysalter, who sold it again somewhere in the country and it occasioned such a cause of complaint, as I believe rendered the claim of payment to be given up, or partly so: of this I am not certain, having it only from report. I mention this in order to give those who wish to become growers of woad, such information as may properly direct them. The leaves of woad on good land in a good season grow very large and long, and when they are ripe, show near their end a brownish spot, inclining to a purple towards its centre, while other parts of the leaves appear green, but just beginning to turn of a more yellowish shade; and then they must be gathered, or they will be injured. Woad is to be gathered from twice to four and even five times in the season, as I once experienced (it was an early and a late season), and for the next spring I saved an acre for seed, of which I had a fair crop. I picked the young seedling sprouts off the rest, and mixed with my first gathering of what was newly sown; this was very good. During one season I let these shoots grow too long; the consequence was, that the fibrous parts became like so many sticks, and afforded no saponaceous juices. When you design to plant woad on the same land the second season, it should be as soon as your last gathering (before winter is finished) be ploughed; that is, as soon as the weather will permit, and in deep furrows or ridges, to expose and ameliorate it by the vegetative salts that exist in the atmosphere, and by frost and snow. This, in some seasons, has partly the effect of a change of produce; but if intended for wheat, the last gathering should not be later than September. The land, after woad, is always clean, and the nature of the soil appears to be greatly changed in favour of the wheat crop; for I have always experienced abundant increase of produce after woad, and observed that it held on for some time, if proper changes were attended to, and good husbandry. Keeping land clean from weeds, certainly produces an increase of corn; but in the hoeing and gathering woad (for hoeing and earthing up the plants often renders them abundantly more prolific, even if there are no weeds), many nests of animalculæ are destroyed, as well as grubs and insects, which are destructive to vegetation. All this is favourable to corn; but I am disposed to believe that woad in itself furnishes such a principle of change in favour of corn (and wheat in particular), as in a high degree to merit the attention of that Society who are so honourably united to promote and encourage the first interests of the British empire. Having said all I conceive necessary on the cultivation of woad, I now proceed to say something on its preparation for the use of the dyer. Woad, when gathered, is carried to the mill, and ground. I need not describe this mill, because they are to be seen in open sheds in |