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II. — Report on Spring-soicn Wheats in 1873. By JoHN 

 Chalmers Morton. 



An attempt was made in this Journal, five years ago, to collect 

 and relate the agricultural experience of some of its readers for 

 the advantage of the others, during a season of remarkably dry 

 weather. Inquiries were addressed to many of the leading 

 tenant-farmers on the roll of the Society's membership, about 

 land drainage, steam cultivation, stubble seeding, catch crops, 

 altered rotations, and methods of supplementing the very deficient 

 winter supply of food for live stock which existed in the countiy 

 in the autumn of 1868. 



These subjects, during a drought and following it, were either 

 of pressing urgency in their importance to the farmer, or were 

 likely to include a great deal coming under the eye of an 

 observant agriculturist in such a season that would be of use 

 hereafter. And, accordingly, the paper " On some of the Agri- 

 cultural Lessons of 1868," in the volume of the Journal for 1869, 

 will be found to contain a good deal of information on the ad- 

 vantages of drainage and deep cultivation ; on the value of 

 mustard, trifolium, cabbage, rye, Italian rye-grass, stubble turnips, 

 and rape, as rapidly growing food for sheep and cattle ; on the 

 possibilities, by good management, of economising such food, 

 when it is scarce, without much loss or injury to the feeding pro- 

 cess ; and, above all, on the need of ample liberty of cultivation 

 being given to the cultivator, if he is to cope successfully with 

 the exceptional difficulties of our English climate. 



The paper began with the assertion that the general prevalence 

 of anything unusual in the natural conditions und^r which the 

 crops of any large district of various soils have been grown, 

 becomes, when its results have been carefully collected and 

 arranged, virtually a well-arranged agricultural experiment of the 

 highest interest, because upon the largest scale. A similar state- 

 ment might very properly introduce the present report. A period 

 of unusual rainfall is just as likely to furnish useful agricultural 

 lessons as a period of unusual drought ; and it may be said of 

 last years wheat crop, as it was of the green-crop of 1868, 

 that it was grown under conditions so extraordinary, that the 

 agricultural history of the year could hardly fail to be instructive. 

 " October of 1872 was a mild, wet month, with a rainfall every- 

 where much in excess of the average. ' " November was a very wet 

 month, with very little frost ; rivers flooded and lowlands covered 

 with water ; wheat-growing greatly interfered with." " December 

 was a very wet, mild month, with at least one-half more than the 

 average rainfall." These statements, taken from a Farmer's 

 Almanack, represent the facts to an ordinary reader quite as 



VOL. X. — S. S. G 



