On tJic Cultivation of Wheat 



535 



Table shewing the Resii.ts of the under- 

 mentioned Wheats (after Potatoes), with 

 the several Dressings used. — Oct. 1868. 



Note. — There arc five ridges in each plot, 

 'vide. — The boll is equal to four imperial bushels. 



fed 



Before entering into an analysis of these ex- 

 periments, it may be well to give the previous 

 cropping of" the land. The field had been 

 two years in pasture, and turnips and oilcake 

 eat on the grass. The succeeding crop 

 was potatoes, grown entirely with artificials. 

 The following crop was Avheat ; it got no 

 dressing of any kind, but was autumn rolled, 

 and was a very fine crop for that year, 

 1866. It was sold standing on the ground, 

 and the measured imperial acre gave 

 fully'eleven sacks. The previous crop to the 

 one now under notice was potatoes manured 

 in the drill, at the rate of 18 tons of farm-yard 

 manure and 6 cwt. of ammoniacal and phos- 

 phatic artificials. All practical farmers are 

 aware of the difticulty of finding a uniform 

 portion of land on' which to fairly test either 

 manures or different kinds of grain. We 

 selected 26 ridges of this field, which we con- 

 sidered equal in quality and character. The 

 previous cropping had all been the same, the 

 potato drills having been made across the 

 ridges in 1865 and along the ridges in 1867. 



After the potatoes were lifted, the land was 

 twice grubbed across the drills, the ground being 

 very hard and dry. The land was then drawn 

 off into ridges and ploughed, the press-wheel 

 roller following three ploughs. Before putting 

 in the seed, the mixture of manures given in 

 the table was sown. We were much puzzled 

 in regard to sowing the wheats. We took a 

 small measure to ascertain the relative pro- 

 portions regarding the size of the grains of 

 the various wheats under experiment, and 

 found as follows — viz., the bowl of a pipe, 

 which held only 119 grains of King Richard, 

 contained 134 of Fenton, 137 of Shirreff's 

 Bearded white, 153 Lammas red, and 193 of 

 Nursery red. The wheats were sown by a 

 broadcast machine, which, with proper care 

 and attention can be adjusted with the utmost 

 nicety, when the same variety of wheat is 

 sown over a whole field, would, we fear, 

 be very difticult to regulate and adjust 

 were we to attempt to proportion the 

 quantities of each kind of wheat to the 

 number of grains contained in the small 

 measure referred to above. We therefore 

 began with the largest sized grain, and sowed it 



