On Wheat, 303 



it is well known that wheat will bear transplanting, it cannot be 

 expected that any occupier of a farm of any extent should adopt 

 such a system of raising his wheat crops. Where the whole crop 

 has been eaten ofF^ and it is too late in the season to sow other 

 grain, or the land is too strong to sow turnips, the best way to 

 prevent such ravages another year is a good dressing of salt, or 

 the ammonia from gas-works. Attempts to make up a thin crop 

 seldom answer expectation ; different means should be tried on 

 the different kinds of land, and according to the time at which 

 the injury has taken place. On strong land, if not too late in the 

 season, dibbling in beans is likely to answer, for the grub will not 

 destroy them. Spring wheat or barley is likely to be eaten. 

 When on my turnip soil I have had part of a crop eaten off, I 

 have sowed l3y my long machine-box a thin sprinkling, a pound an 

 acre, of turnip seed, and have had it hoed in ; these turnips I have 

 found most useful for lambs before penning them on a turnip 

 crop; and the growth of these turnips lessens the quantity of 

 weeds that would come up. 



Pressure by rolling or folding, or both, after sowing on light 

 land, does essential service; also early sowing, and eating the 

 young blade closely and evenly down by penned sheep, giving 

 them in pens the tops of turnips or mangold-wurzel. But on 

 light soils in my opinion there is no way so good for putting in 

 seed wheat as with the presser ; and as it is not possible to make 

 such soils too solid for wheat, it would be well, should the wea- 

 ther be favourable, to roll after the seeding, and afterwards drive 

 a flock of sheep several times over the land. 



It may so happen that crops of wheat escape smut without any 

 preparation of the seed to prevent it ; in these days, scarcely any 

 one runs that risk, but all make use of some preventive. Mine for 

 many years has been to steep the seed in brine that will swim an 

 e^g, drying it afterwards with slaked lime. A solution of quick- 

 lime and water poured whilst hot on the heap of seed corn, 

 turned over, and thus lying twenty-four hours, is a pretty safe pre- 

 ventive. There is no necessity for running the risks of accidents, 

 as there always must be in the use of such deadly poisons as 

 arsenic. An intelligent farming acquaintance says it is best to 

 sow wheat which was cut before it was ripe ; that such seed has 

 more nourishment in it for the infant plant. Such grains surely 

 cannot produce such strong healthy plants as ripe grains. The 

 infant plant gets its first nourishment from the decomposed parts 

 of the grain. • A plump ripe grain surely must afford more nou- 

 rishment for it than an unripe and consequently thin one. 



The generality of the crops of wheat look yellow in the month 

 of May ; this is called maying : if a blade of wheat is pulled up 

 in April, there will be found at the root a part of the seed grain 



