On Wheat. 305 



seasons given spring-wlieat a fair trials and always found it of 

 much less value than lammas. My recommendation then was to 

 sow the velvet-red or any other good brown wheat ; which being 

 so sown produced good crops. A few years ago I tried the 

 experiment of sowing wheat in eight succeeding months, from 

 September to April, and found that the best wheat was pro- 

 duced from that sown in the beginning of February ; but I do 

 not mean from this experiment to recommend sowing at such 

 time, excepting under particular circumstances. 



Hand-hoeing is a tedious operation. Drilling is now so cor- 

 rectly done, that crops may be horse-hoed without being injured. 

 Many wheat crops after clover do not need much hoeing, only 

 wanting perhaps a few thistles spudded up : if so, it is better not 

 to loosen the land by hoeing, for wheat likes firmness round its 

 roots ; and, if on a light soil, nothing should be done likely to let in 

 drought. I find the wheel-hoe I invented, to be pulled forward 

 by a little boy and guided by a youth, a cheap and expeditious 

 way of hoeing drilled corn, and a great assistant in hoeing turnips 

 drilled on a fiat surface. 



Cutting wheat should begin before the crop is quite ripe, 

 otherwise those who have much v/heat to reap must let some of 

 it remain uncut too long, and thus lose, by its shedding in the 

 field, much of the finest grain. It ripens differently in different 

 seasons ; sometimes it dies at the root first ; when it does, it should 

 be cut, although the straw should appear to be too green. Wheat 

 reaped early in the morning, with a strong dew, should not be 

 bound up in sheaves till the dew is entirely dried out. It is a good 

 plan to have the shocks of sheaves thrown down a little time 

 before they are pitched into the waggon, that the butts of them 

 may dry if damp; and that mice, which may have crept into 

 the sheaves, may escape from them, instead of being carried to 

 the barn or house. 



It has often been said that growing wheat is not injured by a 

 field of fox-hunters riding over it ; and even produces more grain 

 in consequence. On light soils it does not do the injury that 

 might be expected from appearance ; but on strong land it does 

 great harm, for in all the holes formed by the horses' feet, and 

 particularly if going down hill, water will stand, and the plants 

 in those holes will die. But immediately after sowing, the 

 trampling of horses does good. A late friend of mine in the 

 Blues, who occupied a farm of light soil near Windsor, found it 

 to be a great benefit to his wheat crops to have his troop walked 

 up and down them, not galloped, immediately after sowing. 



