THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



lir 



distinct. The auiina! which ohUiueJ the prize for len^^th of 

 ears, and which wag exhibited by Mr. Taylor, of Hyaton Green, 

 was extremely well developed &% regards the peculiarity for 

 which it obtained the distinction. The Itugth of tara was 20^ 

 inches. 



We may add that the judges expressed great satisfaction at 

 the pens provided for the birds, which they considered ad- 

 mirably adapted for enabliu;; them to inspect them in every 

 direction. 



THE IMPLEMENT SHOW 

 was supported by Messrs. Rausomcs and Sims, of Ipswich ; 

 Messrs. Pioksley, Sims, and Co., of Sleigh, Lancashire ; Messrs. 

 Davy Brothers, Park-Irouworks, Sheffield ; Mr. George Mills, 

 of the extensive leather works in Neepacnd-lane, Sheffield ; 

 Mr. J. Wi'kinsou, of Grimesthorpe ; Mr. S, Perkin, of Rock- 

 ingham-lane; Mr. John Tasker, of Angel-street, Sheffield; 

 Mr. Robert Awdas, of Sheffield ; Mr. J. H. Winder, of Royda' 

 Works, Sheftield; Mr. Thorley, of 77, Newgate-street, Lou- 

 don; Mr. Winch, of South-street, Sheffield Moor; Mr. 



George Cooper, Electric Works, Wicker, Sheffield; Mr. 

 Jackson, of the Market-place, Sheffield ; Messrs. Spear 

 and Jackson, of .Etna Works, Sheffield; Mr. James 

 Banks, of Whiston ; Mr. Binka, of Norfolk-row, Sheffield ; 

 Messrs. Fisher and Holmes, of Sheffield; Messrs. Wilkinson 

 and Sons, Grimesthorpe; Mr. James Turner, of Sheffield ; Mr. 

 Fisher Godwin ; Messrs. H. J. Morton, and Co., of Leeds ; 

 Mr. Edward Dodson, of Hands worth-hall ; Messrs. Sura- 

 merscales and Son, of Keighley ; Mr. E. Archer, of Great 

 Dover-street, Borough, London ; Mr. Hartley, of I-iUe, France ; 

 Messrs. Pearson and Co., of Leeds ; Messrs. Richmond and 

 Chandler, of Manchester and Liverpool ; Mr. Thomas Cuck- 

 son, of Worksop ; Mr. Smelt, of Warren-street Works, Shef- 

 field ; Messrs. Briggs and Starkey, of Keighley ; Messrs. 

 Ruston, Proctor, and Co., of Lincoln ; Mr. Peter Gabbitas, of 

 Worksop. 



All these firms exhibited implements and inventions for 

 which they are already famous, but that it would be impossible 

 to even enumerate here.— Abridged from the Sheffield Times, 



THE STRIPE SYSTEM OF SOWING CORN. 



On poor mean foul land you must sow thickly, not 

 only in the rows, but wiih the rows close together, in 

 order to prevent wheat or any other cereal beuig 

 choked, smothered, and overmastered by weeds. But 

 on good ground, with early sowing, it is by far the 

 best plan to sow thinly; that is, not with an attenuated 

 scattering of seed along each row, but with wide inter- 

 vals between rows well stocked with plants. We have 

 some land on which three bushels an acre of wheat, 

 got-in early too, is barely enough seed to .secure a full 

 crop of stems in spring; and soil of a better quality, 

 richly farmed for years, produces such a mass of flag 

 and straw, that whole fields lodge every harvest, and 

 give us a heavy produce of lean flinty grain. Topping- 

 wheat with the scythe or hook is an operation unknown 

 on the former, but tediously pursued every year on the 

 latter soil; but whether this chopping off the upper 

 flag really lightens the crop, seeing how rapidly the 

 stems shoot up after the process, may be a question. 

 Go into a heavy, rank, thick-sown piece of wheat, 

 buried up to your arm-pits in the luxuriant jungle of 

 stalks and drooping flags, and bending aside and open- 

 ing them, insjtect the lower portions of the stems : 

 they are blanched and weak, and you know they will 

 be unable to bear up bulky ears against the torrents 

 of July rain. Long before the crop turns yellow for 

 the sickle, the mass of it will be prostrate, the heaviest 

 places ahnost rotting, the ripening of the laid ears made 

 late and imperfect; bindweed will cling about it, and 

 defying any attempt of the reaping-machine, the 

 thorougli-grown and spoiled crop will cost dear in the 

 harvesting. But our twelve-inch rows, drilled with 

 four pecks an acre, are very different; they are healthy 

 to the ground, and even should the weight of their 

 heads bear them down, there is more room for exposure 

 of the flowering and fruiting ears to air and sunshine. 

 Our wheat on the stripe systein, in triple rows ten inches 

 apart, with forty-inch intffrVals betsveen, is still more 



green and stalwart, and the ears whether fully " out" 

 or peeping from the opening spindles are long, and 

 sure to bo amazingly heavy. 



Our experience agrees with the carefully-noted ex- 

 periments of Messrs. Hardy and Son, of Maldon, and 

 we believe there is a general disposition in farm prac- 

 tice to widen the intervals between rows of cereal or 

 other grain crops; of course carefully avoiding ex- 

 tremes at first, and bearing in mind that thin-seeding 

 must be early, and on land not smothered with poppies 

 and charlock, or subject to burning up by the sun. 



The Lois-Weedon wheat crops are well known ; but 

 we would now call attention to the beans there culti- 

 vated at extravagantly wide intervals, with astonishing 

 success. Grown in single rows no less than five feet 

 apart, and with a thin seeding, Mr. Smith's winter 

 beans branch so thickly and widely as to meet across 

 the intervals, and in ordinarily good seasons are podded 

 from top to bottom. It almost transcends belief that, in 

 spite of such wide spaces of ground left unoccupied be- 

 tween the rows, the produce one year was seven quar- 

 ters per acre. But having witnessed the rows in June 

 nearly touching across the intervals, and counted thirty- 

 five to fifty-five pods on single stalks, we can readily ac- 

 quiesce in the accuracy of the measure stated. Last year 

 the yield was fifty and-a-half bushels, and the beans were 

 a first-rate sample. In 1856 the produce was thirty- 

 eight bushels per acre. But the intervals are not 

 wasted, for the beans ripen in time to admit an inter- 

 lining root-crop to perfect its bulbs ; and from the same 

 acre of land which produced the fifty and-a-half bushels 

 of beans were taken eight or nine tons of red carrots; 

 and the bean crop of 1856 yielding thirty-eight bushels 

 gave also a fine crop of about fourteen tons of carrots. 



And in the same way with other crops. We find 

 in the little volume, " Lois-Weedon Husbandry," pub- 

 lished in 1856, that both red and orange globe mangold 

 at sixty inches apart yielded twenty-four tons from -A 



