^S56.] More About Terra Culture. 



579 



and lodges long before the grain is ripe. To get the better of these fanlts, we sow our 

 wheat by a plow drawn by two hoi-ses, five or six inches deep, and cover it with the next 

 farrow at ten or eleven inches breadth. We never harrow after sowing, and the wheat is 

 covered by 1he deepest part of the fuiTow. 



Another advantage of this plan of sowing, is, that all trouble and time of hnn-owin- is 

 saved ; and if sudden rain comes on, the sowiag is stopped at once, without the ri^k'of 

 being half drowned. The ground is also much more cloddv in winter, thus affording 

 shelter to the young plants, and an excellent cover for grass seeds, if sown in a dry blealf 

 frosty morning, without haiTowing, by the decomposition, and falling down or molderin- 

 of the ground as the day advances, and the effects of the sun are felt on it. My experi! 

 ence is, that ban-owing is injurious." 



^ On page 272 of the same work, we have the system of wheat cul- 

 tivation adopted in western New York : 



"The wheat is sown in a clover turf-which Loudon says, page 214, is extremely haz- 

 ardous-time, from the 10th to Ihe 15th September. The quantity of seed is one and a 

 quarter bushels per acre. 



Hatch's machine is used here in sowing wheat and all other kinds of grain ; with this 

 a boy will sow about twenty acres in a day. " ' ' 



A good day's work, certainly! 



In vol. iii. of 1845, we find these instructions: 



"Winter grain is best sown in drflls about six inches apart, as it is thus more exposed 

 to the sun ; the air also circulates more fi-eely through it. Next to sowing in drills we 

 prefer plowing m the grain sown broadcast from two to three inches deep." 



"When the ground is in good condition to receive the seed, it should be sown and 

 harrowed in, with a heavy drag, bmying the seed about thi-ee inches. The experiment 

 has been tried for a series of yeai-s, in Scotland, of plowing it in to a depth of six inches » 

 — ^Page 276, vol. iii., 1845. 



"On one of the best cultivated fams in England-that of the Duke of Bedford at 

 Woburn-Mr. Bumers.. the fam manager, states, that he employed boys to dibble one 

 hundred acres of wheat. The holes were made with a stick, or dibble, three inches as 

 sxmder m the row, the distance between the rows being nine inches ; and the number of 

 'dibs,' per acre, amounted to 2.32,320." 



Here we have one of the best and one of the most successfully 

 cultivated farms in the entire realm, where we would suppose the 

 best modes would be adopted, and yet what does our author say fur- 

 ther on the same page ? 



"A great diversity of opinion prevails on the subject of drilling and dibbling wheat • 

 and from the respectability of the differing parties, there is reason to believe these opin- 

 ions are held in equally good faith." 



The same may truly be said to be the case in our own country. 



