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success of any experiments you may recommend, or I may try, in the line of promoting vegetation on the dry soil of this place, with such implements as are not too expensive for the scale of my farm, which is under 100 acres, being much prouder of the title of an industrious farmer and gardener, than of that I derived from my ancestors.

I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,

M. MARTIN,

LETTER LXVII.

From the same.

Burnham, Norfolk, Dec. 8, 1788, My Dear Sir,

I rejoice that you have had so large a demand for the seed, as I am persuaded it needs but to be tried, to be approved on a small scale, though I do not expect to see it soon adopted in the large farms of this country. It would be a great point gained, if the seeds could be parted, instead of having the troublesome job of parting the plants when they come up, the expence of which would frighten a farmer, if he could get hands to do it, on a large scale; but I can think of no means of doing it, unless by soaking it in water, when first gathered, and rubbing it in sand, as is done with asparagus seed. If the seeds cannot be separated,

I am the more partial to my idea of sowing it in rows, to avoid treading upon the plants intended to be left; and for this year, at least, I shall certainly adopt it, to save seed, which I shall have dibbled, in the manner we do peas and wheat.

Yours, &c.

M. MARTIN.

LETTER LXVIII.

Dear Sir,

From the same.

Burnham, Jan. 28, 1789.

Among my applications for Mangel Wurzel seed is one from Sir Thomas Darrant, who is building a new village, and intends to allot a portion of land to every cottage. He compliments me with asking my opinion of the quantity necessary to enable each inhabitant to keep a cow and pigs, for which purpose, of all others, I think the Mangel Wurzel most likely to be useful; but he seemed not aware that it is but an annual crop, and that the soil will not bear a constant repetition of it. I presumed to recommend dividing each man's land into proper shifts of potatoes, Mangel Wurzel, carrots, cabbages, turnips, and parsnips, to follow each other, and two or three similar portions of lucern, by way of a resting state for the land, rather than attempting to grow corn in so small a space.

I esteem myself enriched by having established a correspondence with Sir Thomas Beevor, to whom I applied for some of those. productive potatoes which he mentions in a letter to the Bath Society. I am so proud of the approbation he expressed of the course of husbandry I propose to adopt, to bring potatoes, Mangel Wurzel, and carrots into common cultivation, that if I did not understand you are no farmer, I would trouble you with a detail of it. In his letter he asks me, whether my roots had resisted the frost, and mentions that his, last year, were four-fifths rotten before March, but does not mention whether they were taken up or no. My carrots, which were so used, rotted very much, and I had a bed of red beet left in the ground, which appeared rotten; but when the ground was dug late in the Spring, I found very considerable bottoms quite sound. The method I intend to try to preserve them both next year is to build them in walls, not more than two feet thick and three feet high; and before the frost, set hurdles on each side, at two feet distance, and fill the spaces, and cover the tops well with pea straw. When that is not to be had, wheat stubble, old thatch, whin faggots, fern, rushes, or any thing else, which can be most easily obtained, to seclude the wet and frost, I think would do.

I have tried soaking the Mangel Wurzel seeds to separate them, but to no purpose; the cells which contain them are of too firm a texture (at least now they are dry) to be so parted. If Sir Richard

Jebb's foreign seeds were single, I conclude our climate has not warmth enough to make them open, which was probably the case with them. But this does not appear to be the case with the Abbé de Commerell's, which are in as large lumps as yours. If there is If there is any country which will produce the seeds single, I should like to import them from it.

The gathering the leaves when in a fading state, I do not think will prejudice the roots at all, and I am persuaded the cattle will prefer them to the younger ones, as they will eat sour grass and weeds, which have been cut a day, that they would not touch when growing. A snail will do the same, being allured by the saccharine juices which exude in that state.

In trimming vines, which I am proud of doing for my neighbours as well as myself, I remove the leaves behind the bunches as soon as they begin to fade, that they may not seclude the air, and harbour birds and snails, but never touch a leaf before the bunches, as I conclude them necessary for the circulation of the juices, and to keep the fruit from being hardened by the cold night air.

Yours, &c.

M. MARTIN.

LETTER LXIX.

Dr. LETTSOM to Sir M. MARTIN, Bart.

Dear Sir Mordaunt,

London, Feb. 5, 1789.

Thy last polite and very instructive letter gave me singular pleasure, and, in many points of view, requires an early answer.

In consequence of the encouragement afforded by this and other letters, and the increasing demand for the Mangel Wurzel, I have ventured to order two hundred weight of seed from Paris, provided it can arrive here by the end of March, which I doubt not it may do. It will come to me under five shillings per pound.

I mean to appoint

a person, not a seedsman, to sell it for me at eight shillings per pound; the profit to be divided between the Society for Relief of Small Debtors, and the Humane Society for Recovery of Drowned Persons.

Now, from the tenour of thy letter, I am emboldened to request some account of the means of cultivating it, in succession, with other vegetables, to suit best the advantage of little farms. These hints I mean to print, to deliver with each packet of seeds, as well as to send to Members of Parliament, Farmers, &c., and perhaps to insert in the Gentleman's Magazine, and a few of the newspapers. I see no occasion to affix any person's name, but entitle the paper "Hints or Directions for culti

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