By this Means, One Year’s Summer-Fallow can have no Effect upon them, but to prepare the Soil for their more vigorous Growth and plentiful Increase the next Year after; and very rarely will the Farmer fallow his Land Two Years successively; and often the Dung, which is made of the Straw of sown Corn, being full of the Seeds of Weeds, when spread on the Fallows, incumbers the Soil with another Stock of Weeds, as ample as that the Fallowing has destroy’d; and tho’ perhaps many of these may not grow the next Year, they will be sure to come up afterwards. The other old Remedy is what often proves worse than the Disease; that is, what they call Weeding among sown Corn; for if by the Hook or Hand they cut some Sorts (as Thistles) while they are young, they will sprout up again, like _Hydras_, with more Heads than before; and if they are cut when full-grown, after they have done almost their utmost in robbing the Crop, ’tis like shutting the Stable-Door after the Steed is stolen. Hand-weeders often do more Harm to the Corn with their Feet, than they do Good by cutting or pulling out the Weeds with their Hands; and yet I have known this Operation sometimes cost the Farmer Twelve Shillings an Acre; besides the Damage done by treading down his Wheat; and, after all, a sufficient Quantity of them have escaped, to make a too plentiful Increase in the next Crop of Corn. The new Hoeing-Husbandry in Time will probably make such an utter Riddance[66] of all Sorts of Weeds[67], except such as come in the Air, that[68] as long as this Management is properly continued, there is no Danger to be apprehended from them; which is enough to confute the old Error of equivocal Generation, had it not been already sufficiently exploded, ever since that Demonstration of _Malpighius’s_ Experiment. For if Weeds were brought forth without their proper Seeds, the Hoeing could not hinder their Production, where the Soil was inclined naturally to produce them. The Belief of that blind Doctrine might probably be one of the Causes that made the Antients despair of finding so great Success in Hoeing, as now appears; or else, if they had had true Principles, they might perhaps have invented and improved that Husbandry, and the Instruments necessary to put it in Practice. [66] A very pernicious, large, perennial Weed, like _Burrage_, with a blue Flower, infested a Piece of Land, for Time out of Mind: Hoeing has destroyed it utterly; not one of the Species has been seen in the Field these Seven Years, tho’ constantly till’d and ho’d.