ed as early as possible, and the ewes never milked on any account. Gimmers, if too long suckled, are sure to rot, and go wrong the following spring, when they are finishing their third year.

In short, as Mr. Bryden justly observes, the best means of preventing rot, is to keep sheep at all times at a regular maintenance, and neither give occasion nor opportunity for a sudden decay,

Cure.-As soon as there is any appearance of the rot, such food as they delight in should be offered to them, and their appetite excited by a little gentle exercise. As long as their bellies are light, a bite of broom, heather, or sea-marsh twice a day, will in general recruit them. Salt is a known antidote in this disease. Sheep are also naturally fond of salt, when they have free access to it. They have been known to run to salt in wooden buckets, and to lick the salt bags hung up in their folds; to eat salted hay and to drink out of cisterns having salt in solution among the water. On a small scale, it may even be given in water by the hand, and poured down their throats. Of all medicines, it is the safest and most effectual against this distemper.

With respect to the cure of it by medicines, little can be said with certainty. The leaves of elecampane, coltsfoot, honey, plantain, foxglove, &c. have all been recommended, but undeservedly, except the foxglove, which seemed to Mr. Stevenson to arrest materially the progress of the disease in those cases in which it was tried. A handful of the leaves was boiled in a Scotch pint of water until it was reduced to three mutchkins, and of this decoction two tea

spoonfulls were given three times a day, with a little molasses and water.

The following receipt has been recommended as very efficacious. Steep four pounds of antimony in two gallons of ale, for a week, and give the sheep a cupfull of it night and morning.

An Account of the Management of several Fields of SPRING-WHEAT, belonging to Mr. Robert Brown, Farmer, at Markle, near Haddington.*

[From the London Society of Arts.]

THE autumn and winter of 1799 being extremely wet, rendered the sowing of wheat, except in a few situations, almost impracticable. I therefore determined to postpone sowing my wheat seed till the spring months; trusting, as my ground was in good condition, that if the weather was then favourable, I could get the business accomplished in a proper manner. The land was therefore ploughed in as good order as possible; and from the uncommon frosts which afterwards prevailed, it turned very mellow and fine when dry weather arrived.

About the 20th of February, 1800, I commenced sowing, which was continued, as circumstances permitted, till the middle of March; and in that time one hundred and forty-five acres were sown, besides ten acres afterwards ploughed down. The soil of the greatest part of the land thus sown, was a deep loam incumbent upon clay; and the remainder was a lighter loam upon a gravelly bottom.Thirty acres had been summer-fallowed, limed and dunged, the preceding year. Ninety-five acres were after a crop of drilled beans, which had been

This communication obtained the silver medal, or twenty guineas, at the option of the candidate, awarded by the London Society of Arts, and particularly demands the attention of the farmer, when bad seasons prevent the autumnal sowing of wheat.

completely horse-hoed. Fourteen acres had been occupied by turnips and potatoes, both drilled and horse-hoed; and six acres had carried summer tares. None of the fields received more than one ploughing, after the preceding crop was removed, except those under summer fallow; which had seven ploughings, and were manured with fourteen double horse cart loads of dung, and three hundred bushels of shell lime per acre.

The kind of wheat sown was principally the Essex white and Egyptian red, which in shape of head and size of grain are nearly similar. Some of the white wheat was of Kentish variety, which from being long sown upon the farm, was much blend.. ed with red wheat. The crop upon the heavy loams was with a few trifling exceptions, uniformly good. -The light loam was much hurt by the growth of yellow weeds, which last year prevailed upon such soils in an uncommon degree. The whole was ready for the sickle about the first week of September, and was cut from the 3d to the 12th of that month. A sample of the Essex kind accompanies this paper.

From the small quantity yet threshed, the produce cannot be exactly ascertained; but from trials which have been made, it is supposed that the fields sown after summer fallow, will yield forty bushels per acre ; those sown after beans thirty-six bushels, and those after tares, potatoes and turnips, twenty-four bushels. The last being upon the dry soil were much injured by the drought and yellow weeds, while the deep lcam was rather benefited by the dry weather. Rr

The weight of the grain already threshed, is nearly sixty-two pounds per Winchester bushel.

The inferences which may be drawn from the above statement, are,

First, That wheat may be sown with advantage in the spring months, till the middle of March, if the weather is then dry, the land in good condition, and the succeeding summer moderately warm.

Secondly, That under the above circumstances, the period of harvest is not retarded above ten days by the late sowing, especially in favourable seasons.

Thirdly, That the grain produced from spring crops of wheat is equally good in quality, as that sown in the autumn and winter months.