428 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



hour's property, jior can ninety-nine proprietors desirous to 

 improve an unprofitable unliealtliy marsli, effect their ob- 

 ject if one negative voice is raised. Ouglit we not to have 

 some general and facile means of overcoming such patent 

 evils as these ? It may be tlie opinion of many that each 

 evil should command its own remedy, and that a special 

 act of Parliament should be obtained for each bit of dis- 

 trict drainage and each separate outfall ; but those who 

 have had to pay for such acts, and those who have tested 

 the practical difficulties resulting from the incompetent 

 character of the tribunals before whom such measures are 

 brought, will agree with me that confusion will only become 

 worse confounded if we be left to such remedy. 



The statistics of the cost of Parliamentai-y proceedings 



in the matter of drainage are not inviting. The cost of 

 the Norfolk Estuary Acts was £'40,112 10s., while Messrs. 

 Peto and Betts' contract for the works was ^142,000 ! The 

 cost of the Neve Valley Drainage Acts has been £30,083 

 Os. lOd, : the extent of land proposed to be benefited is 

 16,000 acres ; so that nearly £'2 per acre has been expended 

 in Parliamentary proceedings alone. The average cost of 

 under-draining is £b per acre, as it is executed under the 

 Drainage Commission, the administration of which does 

 not exceed 2s. per acre — a cost it will be well to compare 

 with the Parliamentary expenses I have quoted, when it is 

 considered how the remedy is to be applied. 



J. Bailey Denton. 

 Woodfidd, Stevenage, Sept. %m, 1860. 



WHEAT SOWING. 



PREVENTION OF SLUG DEPREDATION-ROOTING OF CEREALS. 



In the case of moist autumns, absence of froat, and conse- 

 quent generation of myriads of slugs (the small grey snail), 

 much damage has occurred by their eating out the burating 

 eye or developing germ of the sown wheat, or cutting the 

 braird at the surface of the ground. More than fifty years 

 ago, in a moist autumn, I caused a cart-load of powdered 

 quick-lime to be spread thin from the cart across the middle 

 of a newly-aown wheat field after the harrowing was com- 

 pleted—the wheat haviug been sown after a crop of peas and 

 beana. During the winter the limed portion appeared a broad 

 green balk across a grey field, and in the spring there were 

 more than three plants in the limed portion for one in the un- 

 limed. Since that time I have repeatedly given, with marked 

 success, from four to ten bolls per acre (six bolls of unelacked 

 lime being about a ton) to my autumn-sown wheat after 

 legumes, in moist autumns. It is well known that a very little 

 quick-lime thrown into streams or pools kills the fish, and the 

 first shower after application of the lime, forming lime-water 

 and pervading the ground, kills the slugs. Besides, the 

 lime ao applied is useful as a manure or stimulus to the crop, 

 and is the best or only known preservation from blight. I 

 may mention here, that what is termed pickling the seed with 

 lime or blue-stone does not prevent slug-depredation. We 

 also find that lime thus exposed on the surface (not mixed 

 with the soil, except in the small dissolved portion) is the best 

 mode of application. The quick hydrate of lime in consi- 

 derable quantity mixed with the soil, in the case of sown 

 wheat, is often injurious. In the highly new-limed field, where 

 the braird appeared sickly and stunted, I have dug up the 

 plants, and found the roots brown and shrunk up, or turned- 

 in, like the contracted toes of a dead or dying crow, the con- 

 traction of the rootlets being caused by the acrid hydrate. 

 After exposure for a year on the surface of the ground, the 

 lime, by extracting carbonic acid, &c., from the atmosphere, 

 becomes a mild manuring carbonate. When the roots are thus 

 contracted by the corrosive hydrate, the plant is the more 

 easily thrown out by the winter frost, or becomes so weak and 

 sickly in spring as to be killed by the dry frosty winds. 

 Perhaps, in no case should lime in the caustic hydrate state 

 be mixed with the soil, except where peat or other effete 

 carbonic matter abounds. 



The process of primary and secondary rooting in cereals, I 

 am sorry to say, is not generally known to farmers. In the 

 germination of wheat and other cereals the primary root, or 

 Mdicle, pushes downwards, and serves, along with the seed 



itself, to nourish the plant in the first stage of its upward 

 growth. This, however, is only a provisionary supply. The 

 primary root soon decays, the seed-supply of nourishment is 

 exhausted, and what is termed the navel-string rota away ; 

 while, however deep the seed and primary root may have been, 

 a knot is formed at the surface of the ground, and new or 

 secondary roots, sideward and downward, strike out from this 

 knot, pei^etrating the soil like radii from a centre, but en- 

 dowed with a discriminating instinct to push out strongest in 

 the direction of the most nutritive food-supply, and in the 

 larger, or tree-vegetation, mechanically, in prefeience to the 

 windward side.* It is when in cold, unpropitious weather, 

 the secondary rooting lingers, and is but imperfectly developed, 

 and the primary dying, or becoming weak, before the se- 

 condary are well established, that danger to the plant by 

 throwing out, or dry frost-nip, is most to be apprehended. 

 In the case of throwing out, the frost fixes the plant at the 

 surface of the ground to the surface-earth, and the expansion 

 by freezing, and in many soils the much greater expansion 

 caused by the open honeycomb freezing-arrangement of the 

 earth below the surface, upheaving the surface-earth with the 

 stem of the plant fixed in it, pulls up the primary root, or 

 fractures the navel-string, before the secondary rooting is 

 sufficiently developed. Of course, by repeated frosts and 

 thaws, the damage is greatly increased. It follows that in 

 ground disposed to throw the plant, it is better to sow a 

 little early or late — either that the secondary roots may be 

 well developed before the winter seta in, or the navel-string 

 young and strong enough not to be easily fractured : the 

 latter is to be preferred. Consolidating the ground well by 

 treading, rolling, or by pressing, in soils disposed to throw the 

 plant, is advantageous. More than fifty years ago, before the 

 invention of a pressing-machine, I have kneaded the sown 

 fallow-wheat with horses, and, previous to sowing, driven a 

 half-loaded cart over all the ground, making the wheel-pressed 

 ruts about nine inches separate. This was after summer- 

 fallow, when the soil was diy, loose, and very friable. 



Patrick Matthew. 

 Gourdie Hill, Carse of Cowrie, Oct. 10, 1860. 



* This surface-rooting is a general law, though sometimes 

 departed from exceptionally where the earth has been deep 

 dug, and lying very loose in large clods, so as to be much per- 

 meated by the air ; where, indeed, the plant could not well 

 discriminate where the surface of the earth was. I have 

 found it here form a plurality of knots and root-centres down- 

 wards. 



