36 On the Comparative Advantages of 



plan of growing wheat be carried out with success at Rotham- 

 sted ? And his answer, after a trial of four years, is, that with 

 the same amount of labour and the same mechanical means as 

 those employed at Lois Weedon, it cannot. It has been for me 

 to show, from his own statement in this public Journal, that the 

 same amount of labour and the same mechanical means have not 

 been employed ; that the great principle has been violated ; and 

 that the result, in consequence, has been, crops poor in amount, 

 foul in growth, and in quality hlighted and had. 



Had the conditions been fulfilled, the thin sowing, at a peck to 

 the acre, might have succeeded with a high average produce, as it 

 did for years at Lois Weedon, where the very first crop on the 

 light land, aftei' wheat, yielded 41 bushels of excellent grain, 

 though large and somewhat coarse. It would have produced, as 

 it did there, fine bold ears of an extraordinary size, with thick 

 reed-like straw. It is nothing to the point, then, that, for better 

 security against losing plant, I now sow two pecks instead of one, 

 the smaller gi'ain making a more marketable sample, and the finer 

 straw being more useful at home. It is enough that the one peck 

 succeeded at L'ois Weedon, being sown in due time on land pro- 

 perly tilled and pulverised, and yet well solidified with the roller 

 at seed-time and in spring ; while it was certain to fail — as any 

 amount of seed would have failed — on a spit of what was little 

 better than raw, unmitigated, unpulverised clay. The trial-piece 

 at Rothamsted being in this condition, I will only add, in conclu- 

 sion, that I do not believe there is a farmer in England, acquainted 

 with his business, who will not share my surprise, not that the 

 crops were so bad, but that there were any crops at all. 



Lois Weedon Vicarage, May, 1857. 



III. — On the comparative Advantages of solving Beans in Spring 

 and Autumn. By Robert Vallentine. 



Peize Essay. 



The comparative advantages of sowing spring or winter beans 

 are not very numerous, but still not unimportant. It is, we 

 imagine, generally known that winter beans cannot be sown in 

 spring to ensure any chance of a good crop, nor can spring beans 

 of the usual kind be sown in winter with the least chance of be- 

 coming a crop at all. 



Winter beans, to me, certainly possess some obvious advan- 

 tages over spring ones ; the chief of which are that they are 

 less subject to blight and other diseases than spring beans: 



