120 Report on Spring-sotcn Wheats in 1873. 



sown on clover roots (dunged) both in autumn and in spring-. — 

 Mr. Scholey of Eastoft Grange, Goole, to whom the credit of in- 

 troducing the " Square-head " variety of wheat is due, gives a verj 

 interesting comparative account of a number of varieties, and 

 specifies the extraordinary yiekls which have been obtained on 

 the rich alluvial soils in his neighbourhood. — Mr. Knapton, of 

 Ameott's Grange, Doncaster, recommends the " Square-head "^ 

 wheat for early spring sowing. Sown in February it yielded 

 about one-third more than Talavera sown in March. — Some few 

 reports are added from Scottish and Irish farms, without, how- 

 ever, adding materially to the lessons to be gathered from those 

 which have preceded them. 



The following reports from the light-land farms to which the 

 circular inquiry was directed, as might be expected, relate fewer 

 difficulties and present therefore less distinctive guidance by the 

 experiences of 1873 which they describe. 



12 REPORTS FROM LIGHT SOILS. 



1. Bedfont, Hounslow, Middlesex. 

 (560 acres Arable ; 40 acres Pasture.) 



Soil. — Gravelly loam, very various. 



The Eotation of Cropping generally adopted is the [six-course : one-third 

 ■wheat, one-third oats and barley, one-third pulse and roots and clover. 



Two-thirds of the wheat-land is, in ordinary years, sown in autumn ; one- 

 third in spring. 



In the autumn of 1872 we could not sow all the clover lea on account of 

 wet, and 90 acres of land intended for wheat were left unsown in 1872. 



Our sorts were the Burmah, a stiff-strawed productive wheat of fair quality 

 (Fig. 12), came originally from Burmah about 1862 ; Nursery, a red spring. 

 wheat, very common ; and Rough Chaff Talavera, a new sort, of prime- 

 quality and productive (Fig. 11). 



As to the treatment of the crop : manure is usually applied to the preceding^ 

 crop, and it is mostly hoed in spring. 



As to the character and date of harvest — both winter-sown and spring-sown, 

 wheats were bad alike, except that the sj^ring-sown was very much more 

 blighted. 



Of nine fields of Burmah wheat seven were sown in November. They were- 

 respectively : — A thin crop, but very bright ; a fair upstanding crop ; one very 

 much blighted and root fallen ; a poor thin crop and much root fallen ; a fair 

 crop, but somewhat blighted ; a fair upstanding crop, and promised a much 

 better result ; one was sown in February and was very short in straw and 

 much blighted ; one in February and March Avas the heaviest and best crop at 

 any. A field of Rough Chaff Talavera, sown in March, was a middling crop^ 

 and rather blighted and smutty ; and Nursery wheat sown in March on two- 

 fields was a very poor blighted crop, and very short in the straw and very 

 much blighted — never, indeed, was yellow, but passed from green to brown. 



You are very welcome to my experience, but I very much fear that your 

 labours will be futile as to any practical results ; these being, in my humble 

 opinion, so entirely dependent on seasons. 



