Hudson, in considering this species as indigenous, directs us to hedges for our specimens; but, though the teasel is certainly found a wilding in some places astray from cultivation, yet it is singular that with us it does not wander from culture: though the seeds are scattered about and swept from the barns where the heads are dried into the yard, and vegetate in profusion on the dung-heaps and the by-ways where dropped, yet I have never observed it growing in the surrounding hedges. Teasels are cultivated in some of the strong clay-lands of Wilts, Essex, Gloucester, and Somerset. The latter county is supposed to have grown them earliest. The manufacturers rather give the preference to those of Gloucester, as lands repeatedly cropped are thought not to produce them so good in some respects. Strong land, thrown up as for wheat, and kept dry, affords the best teasels. Weeding, draining, and other requisites, demand a constant labor through great part of the year; and hence a certain expense is incurred: but remuneration, loss, or great profit, circumstances must determine; nor, perhaps, is there any article grown more precarious or mutable in its returns. The teasel throws up its heads in July and August; and these are cut from the plant by hand, with a knife particularly formed, and then fastened to poles for drying: the terminating heads are ready first, and called “kings:” they are larger and coarser than the others, and fitted only for the strongest kinds of cloth, and are about half the value of the best. The collateral heads then succeed, and receive the name of “middlings,” and are the prime teasels. Should the season prove moist, great injury ensues; but exposure to wet for any length of time ruins the head, which, by its peculiar construction, retains the moisture, and it decays. We cannot stack them like corn, as pressure destroys the spines, and a free circulation of air is required to dry them thoroughly; and we seek for barns, sheds, and shelter of any kind, crowd the very bed-rooms of our cottages with them in dripping seasons, and bask them in every sunny gleam that breaks out: this is attended with infinite trouble; and as few farmers, who have so many other concerns on their hands, like to encounter it, they become the speculation of the most opulent class of cottagers. When dry, they are picked and sorted into bundles for sale, ten thousand best and small middlings making a pack; nine thousand constitute the pack of kings. If there be a stock on hand, and the season favorable, there is a sufficiency for the demand, and the price low: if adverse weather ensue, the price becomes greatly advanced, and we have known them in the course of a few months vary from 4l. to 22l. the pack! but from 5_l._ to 7_l._ is perhaps the average price of this article. This variation in value affords the growers a subject for constant speculation—a source of rapid wealth to some, and