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work, as a descendant of the learned and ingenious author of the " Histoire des Huns," the translator of the "Choo-king," and the writer of many valuable articles in the "Memoirs de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres."

We shall add but one word on the, folio Atlas of plates which accompanies these volumes. It is in fact a most wretched specimen of the state of the fine arts in the capital of la Grande Nation; indeed the whole performance is so miserable, as even

to disgrace a Chinese artist; to whose drawings, in fact, if we are not greatly deceived, the engraver has been indebted. Yet many of these tame and trumpery prints bear the names of no less than three persons; thus we have " De. Guignes fecit;"" Duval sculpsit;” “ Deseve direxit." In this respect the national character has suffered no change; a Frenchman must still call to his assistance the whole ocean, when a pail of water would be more than sufficient for his purpose.

FROM THE MONTHLY REVIEW.

Memoirs of Josias Rogers, Esq. Commander of his Majesty's ship Quebeck. By the late William Gilpin, M. A. Prebendary of Salisbury, and Vicar of Boldre, in New Forest. Published by his Trustees for the Benefit of his School at Boldre. 8vo. pp. 184. Price 68. boards. 1808.

CAPT. ROGERS having been Mr. Gilpin's parishioner, and well known to him both in his private and his professional character, Mr. G. deemed it a duty to avail himself of various documents which fell into his hands, by paying a just tribute to departed worth in the record of a meritorious life. He accordingly composed the memoirs before us, which form a very interesting historical tract, entertaining even to the general reader, and highly honourable to the lamented subject of them; who was carried off by the yellow fever, at Grenada, 24th April, 1795, aged only forty. To the most amiable personal qualities, he added the highest professional merits; and the events of his life display such

evidences of his zeal, his activity, his judgment, his coolness, his intrepidity, and his knowlege, as render him an object well worthy of the contemplation and imitation of all young heroes of the ocean. The energy of his mind, indeed, and the versatility of his talents, which enabled him to act on shore as a soldier with as much honour and effect as at sea in his more immediate sphere, assimilate his character very much with that of the illustrious Nelson. He has left one brother, captain Thomas Rogers, also of the royal navy; having had the mortification of losing another brother, and a nephew, out of his own ship, by fever, while in the fatal West In dies.

SPIRIT OF THE MAGAZINES.

Singular local Changes in the relative Situations of France, England, and Holland; occasioned by the Encroachments of the Sea.

THE recent accidental discovery of a chart of the British channel, seen at Calais in 1798 by a Dutch captain, said to be 850 years old, in the possession of a respectable inhabitant who had been mayor of that place, seems to have thrown a very strong light upon the encroachments of the sea. This chart, delineated on parchment, extended on the east to Heligoland; on the north to Orfordness; and on the west to the present site of the Isle of Wight, which then formed a part of the main land of England. The principal headlands, as they now exist, were correctly laid down. Between Dover and the opposite side of the coast of France, there was a space of three miles only; Calais must, therefore, have been then situated in the interiour. Not any entrance was described either into Dunkirk, Flushing, or Beerhaven. The island of Goree being attached to the main land, of which it formed a part, there was not any passage to Rotterdam. Not any Flemish banks were laid down; the space occupied by them, and intermediately between them and the coast opposite, likewise constituting a portion of the main land. But in the North Sea, the depth of water in this chart corresponded with the present depth. The Vlie, or Fly Island as it is now called, was connected with the main land.

Such and so extraordinary are the encroachments which the sea ap

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pears to have made on this part of the coast; as, in the space described, the more prominent and elevated headlands are on the side of England, it would seem that, with a reference of three miles only, instead of seven leagues, forming what is called the Strait of Dover, the great, if not the entire loss of land, must have been on the side of France; the sea continuing to gain until it was stopped by the cliffs of Calais, and the elevated lands in the vicinity. The headlands, styled the Forelands, orth and south, then existed as at

esent. That part of England, therefore, cannot have sustained any material loss in the space of nearly nine centuries, since this chart was made: but, towards Hampshire, the deperdition of soil must have been considerable, if the Isle of Wight was then really connected with the main land. Reasoning from the other data supplied by this ancient chart, it is presumable that the opposite coasts of France, Flanders, and from Dieppe, perhaps, to the farthest extremity of the latter country, must have been greatly deteriorated by these encroachments. Let the age of the chart be considered, and reflection be made at the same time on the constant ravages the sea is known to have more recently committed in different quarters, the above facts, however extraordinary, will then not appear entirely void of probability.

Letter from W. Richardson, D. D. late Fellow, Trinity College, Dublin, to Thomas Allen, Esq. containing Facts and Observations relative to the Variety of Irish Grass, called FIORIN.*

SIR,

IN compliance with your request, I shall throw together some facts and observations on the subject of our Irish Fiorin Grass (whose luxuriance you admired so much at PORTRUSH in the course of your late tour) selecting, as well as I can, such circumstances as I have slightly or not at all touched upon in my former publications relative to this very extraordinary grass.

The attention shown to such of these as have already reached your country, is very gratifying; and the experiments making upon fiorin, or rather the attempt to cultivate it about Edinburgh, are to me highly flattering, and lay me under an obligation of aiding such spirited efforts with every cooperation in my

power.

The condition I lay myself under of searching for new matter, must necessarily make this communication somewhat desultory; but, even so, should you think fit to present it to the Farmer's Magazine, I readily

consent.

PORTRUSH FIORIN CROPS.

I shall commence (for the encouragement of those who live in bleak situations) with the history of the stripe of meadow I showed you at Portrush, little more than one hundred yards from the rocky shore of the Northern Ocean.

The ground, raised by nature a little above the level of the meadow, which I had got possession of five or six years ago, was so light, dry and poor, that, in 1805 and 1806, I did not consider it as worth mowing, but left its crop standing, to be eaten with the aftergrass with the rest of the meadow, when my cattle should be turned in.

In the year 1807, desirous to bring this unproductive part of my field into a profitable state, I planted potatoes in it with the usual quantity of dung; and when they were dug out late in September, laid it down with fiorin, having just at that time acquired some knowledge of the great value of this newly discovered grass.

Late in September 1808, the stripe was mowed; and I then published, in an addition to the memoir honoured with a medal by the board of agriculture, the mower's affidavit, that it was the finest meadow he ever cut; and also the testimony of the magistrate who administered the oath, that the crop seemed double the quantity usually had on so much ground.

The same person has just now mowed it again, and thinks the present crop much better than that of last year, though very different; the strings which compose the present crop being little more than one third of the length of those he had cut before; but the deficiency in the length of the strings of the second year was more than compensated by the prodigious increase of their number. The hay is now, September 23d 1809, in lap cocks; and the country people who come to see it, are fully satisfied that I must have carried in hay at night from another place, to increase the quantity, for bravado.

The second stripe at right angles to the former, whose shaking_mat and enormous strings surprised Mrs. Allen and you so much, was circumstanced and cultivated in the same way the following year. It was laid down in the middle of September 1808, in the presence of earls O'Neil and Gosford, then at my house; both

*For another publication on this subject see Select Reviews, Vol. II. page 401.

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I have, on different occasions, stated that fiorin grass will thrive well if laid down with roots or strings any day in the year.

I was certainly right, when looking only to the grass itself; but, when crops are our object, other circumstances must be taken into consideration and we must inquire what are the periods of its enemies and competitors, and when will fiorin grass encounter them at the greatest advantage.

Here we must speculate a priori, and look to the separate natures of the rivals contending for possession. Fiorin is in perpetual vegetation; while the other grasses and weeds it has to contend with, have only their paroxysms of growth, and their periods of torpor.

Let us avail ourselves of these opposite habits, and put down fiorin, when the powers of its competitors are not in action, and it probably will have acquired vigour enough to overpower them when they resume their efforts, at first feeble.

I shall illustrate this by example. Aware of the importance of the point to which you direct your inquiries, I determined to ascertain it with precision; and in 1808, as I dug my potatoes; from the 1st of August, I, every third or fourth day, dressed and laid down the ground with fiorin strings and roots, every one of which came on well; but unfortunately so did its spontaneous competitors.

I interfered and wed, but in vain; the promiscuous vegetation came on

with vigour; and the feedling grasses were not distinguishable from the nascent sprouts of the fiorin.

Thus, though a single root of fiorin had not failed, its rivals had got on so much better, that, early in July, I was obliged to mow an indiscriminate fleece, of which the predominant grass was Holcus lanatus.

What was put in later produced a very different result, viz. the magni. ficent crop I have mentioned, exclusively fiorin. The reason is obvious; the middle of September is (at least in that harsh climate) too late for spontaneous vegetables to come forward with success; of course, the fiorin was left in exclusive possession until spring.

To return to your question. I consider, from the above and similar observations, that the best months for putting down fiorin are October, November, and December; some of my finest crops were laid down on the 18th of the preceding December.

In January, February, and March, fiorin will come on well; even put down in April and May, if carefully wed, it will, in rich ground, give a tolerable crop that year.

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Seed, no doubt, and in the greatest abundance is produced; but the young tendril is so diminutive, and so slow of growth, that it is nearly and other grasses which do not mark impossible to protect it from weeds their species early. With much difficulty I reared two or three small spots from the seed; but, in extensive practice, seed is inadmissible.

SOILS FIT FOR FIORIN CULTURE.

You were surprised at a position you had met with in some publication of mine, that fiorin throve equally in all soils, the wettest and the dryest.

The term equally, in strictness,

may have been improper. I meant equal health, but certainly not equal luxuriance.

I can confirm my revolting position by strong facts.

October 1806, in forming a new hortus irriguus, for experiments in irrigation, my dam flooded a ditch, containing many fiorin roots, not one of which was destroyed; they still continuing to send up their strings to the surface, after being covered for three years by water 20 inches deep; and they are carefully preserved for inspection.

Again, in April 1807, I planted a fiorin root on the top of my garden wall, ten feet high. At the time, I put some little earth about it, but never watered, or even approached it since; yet it has continued for three years in good health in that dry situation. I often, indeed, find fiorin roots growing on the rough sides of old walls, and particularly at the deserted castle of Benburb near me, and on earl O'Neil's park wall.

In practice, through an extensive and much diversified farm, I have not yet found a single spot so wet, or so dry, that fiorin may not be (or rather has not been) cultivated to advantage on it.

I do not possess any light, loose, dry, sandy soil; yet am sanguine enough to expect, that a valuable crop of fiorin hay might be obtained from such ground, after a slight top dressing, tolerably rich; and I earnestly recommend the experiment to the possessors of such land.

That fiorin will grow there, nature tells us in the most convincing manner; for its panicles, at this season, abound on every spot of the description. That it will be luxuriant, if kept in exclusive possession, and effectually protected, I speculate

thus.

Our common meadows, whose hay is chiefly composed of the stalk bearing the panicle, come to their period of perfection between the inflorescence and the ripening of the seed,

mostly in June and July; then their vegetation ceases. Their luxuriance, of course, depends much on the quantity of rain that fell in May and June; and when these months happen to be dry, our hay crops fall off greatly.

Fiorin crops depend on circumstances totally different; for though the panicles of this grass are very abundant, and come forward in July, it is not upon them we depend for our crop: it is on the strings, or stolones, infinitely more abundant, and of far superiour quality.

But the periods of vegetation of the stolones is very different. Their greatest paroxysm is in September. I think they vegetate rather more in October than in August. They increase their length a good deal in November, and continue growing through December.

Hence I expect it will follow, that in the driest, and even sandy ground, the fiorin strings will find moisture enough at the latest periods, in which it has pleased nature to call their powers into action.

SEASON FOR MOWING FIORIN, AND

MAKING IT INTO HAY.

The late growth of the stolonts, in which the value of the fiorin hay exclusively consists, induces the necessity of mowing at a very late period; and fortunately, nature has endowed those strings with powers wherewith to brave the severities of the season to which they must necessarily be exposed, during the process of converting them into hay.

You ask me at what time I really intend to mow the fourteen acres of fiorin meadow I have now standing?

My positions relative to winter, and even spring hay-making, have been deemed so revolting, as greatly to discourage fiorin culture, and have stopped many who otherwise would have engaged in it.

Hence, to prevent the ill effects of so general a prejudice, I found it necessary to establish the facts

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