yet it seems to hanker after its lost fame, and lingers around the dwellings of man; for though not solely found about our habitations, as Miller thought, yet generally, when perceived, it is near some inhabited or ruined residence, not as a stray from cultivation, but from preference. Our village doctresses, an almost extinct race of useful, valuable women, the consolers, the comforters, and often mitigators of the ailments of the poor, still make use of vervain tea as a strengthener, and the dried powder of its leaves as a vermifuge; but probably in another generation all the venerated virtues of the vervain will be consigned to oblivion. This plant seems to be the native growth of many districts in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The dyers’ weed, yellow weed, weld, or wold (reseda luteola),[26] thrives in all our abandoned stone quarries, upon the rejected rubbish of the lime-kiln, and waste places of the roads, apparently a perfectly indigenous plant. Unmindful of frost, or of drought, it preserves a degree of verdure, when nearly all other vegetation is seared up by these extremes in exposed situations. It was, and is yet, I believe, cultivated in England for the use of the dyer. We import it, however, into Bristol from France; and it sells in that city for ten shillings per cwt. in a dry state. It gives a fine, permanent, yellow color to cottons, silks, and woollens, in a variety of shades, by the aid of alum, &c. A blue tincture changes these to as fine a green. Injury has certainly been occasioned by writers on agricultural affairs recommending, without due inquiry, the culture of this or that crop; and I would not incur a censure that I blame in another; yet I cannot but suggest the possible profit that might arise from the culture of this plant. If foreigners derive sufficient encouragement to import it, notwithstanding the charges of freight, port duties, and various consequent expenses, why can it not be grown with us, and afford superior remuneration, not having such deductions to diminish the profits? The culture of it seems very simple, the manner of conducting the crop, and harvesting the product, attended with little trouble or risk. Marshal[27] prefers a good soil; others again say, that it becomes stalky in a rich soil. With us it grows luxuriantly, three or four feet high, on a thin, stony, undressed soil, apparently the very station it prefers; and we have about us much land of this kind, not intrinsically worth ten shillings an acre. It might be rash to predict the amount of a crop in such soils, but a ton to an acre is said to be but a small allowance; yet the produce of only this quantity, which would procure in the market a return of 10_l._ without any expenditure for manure, no more manual labor after the seed is sown, for nine months, than three thinnings, and cleanings with the hoe, and the crop harvested within the year, would be no trifling profit, and may be deserving of some