Having presented one of your books to Mr. Richard Laycock, a considerable farmer and cowkeeper at Holloway, with a request that he would cultivate the root, he did me the favour to make choice of a piece of land, containing 1 rood and 20 perches, which had been part of a field, composed of brick earth or strong clay, in the procurement of which, the field had for several years past been dug over to a great depth below the original surface. On this piece he caused a quantity of soil and rotten dung intermixed therewith to be laid, and the ground levelled, about 10 or 12 inches deep. In the month of May he commenced dibbling the seed in rows 2 feet asunder, and 1 foot apart in the rows; but, for want of time, only about one third part of the crop was got in by this mode. The remainder was transplanted in the middle of June. The whole of the land was kept perfectly clean, and, while confined to the upper soil, the plants made rapid progress. Had the subsoil been of a yielding nature, the crop would have been extraordinary; but it was observable, although the tap roots were particularly vigorous, that so soon as they had penetrated to the unbroken clay, they invariably divided and turned off in a horizontal direction, and afterwards threw out fibrous shoots without number. The seed was procured from a nurseryman at Fulham, and was particularly good. Very few of the plants ran up to seed; those that did so, were not suffered to remain, but were taken up and given to the cows, as were also the lower leaves, which were repeatedly stripped off in considerable quantities. In the middle of November the whole crop was drawn off and weighed, after being cleared of the tops and loose dirt. The produce was 15 tons and a few pounds over, average weight of the roots, 5¾ pounds. Correspondent produce 40 tons per acre. Although this experiment on Mr. Laycock’s land falls short of those stated in your Treatise, yet, when the extreme unfavourableness of its situation is considered, that of an exhausted brickfield, the deficiency is easily accounted for. Indeed I cannot help thinking its result such, as to hold out considerable temptation to occupiers of strong clay farms, whereon turnips cannot successfully be cultivated, to make trial of a root, which, with previous winter plowing, promises more profit than can be obtained from any other crop that I know of[1]. The increase of live stock and radical improvements of such farms must necessarily follow. I am, &c. PETER POTTER. Footnote 1: