Report on Spring-sown Wheats in 1873. 131 



Avheat are all described as spring wheats ; and he declares himself 

 confident of the advisability of sowing what are recognised as 

 Avinter wheats in early spring, rather than any of the acknowledged 

 spring sorts, certain that if a good seed-time occurs in early 

 spring, some varieties of winter wheats will yield a better return, 

 both as regards quantity and quality, than the spring wheats. 

 When, however, he is precluded from sowing before the middle 

 of March, he prefers the spring varieties, and among these the 

 " April " wheat has few superiors. — Mr. Cornices, of Barford 

 Farm, on Salisbury Plain, gives a good account of spring-sown 

 " Nursery " wheat. — Mr. Rawlence, of Bulbridge Farm, near 

 Salisbury, describes an experience in which the difficulties of the 

 wheat seed-time of last year have had very little place. The con- 

 stant liability to mildew of which he complains, irrespective of 

 sort or season, seems to be due rather to the condition of the soil, 

 than to kinds of wheat or times of sowing. 



Of course it is not in the reports from the lighter soils, but 

 in those from heavy-land farms that there is any chance of useful 

 information on the policy or impolicy of spring-sowing wheat 

 under the special circumstances of 1872-3. But even here I 

 fear that, on the whole, Mr. Sherborn's judgment, after 36 years' 

 experience, will be very generally accepted. Whatever be the 

 lessons of any particular year, farmers will begin wheat-sowing 

 in October, or in milder climates in November, and get through 

 it as quickly as the condition of the soil and of the weather will 

 permit them. If all can be sown before winter, so much the 

 better ; but if not, the work will be continued as opportunity 

 offers, so long as the soil is fit, with the certainty, however, that 

 the later sown crops will be less productive than the earlier ; with 

 the probability, moreover, — ^on which this report is altogether 

 silent, — that it may generally prove more profitable to sow barley 

 in place of wheat after the month of February. 



I must not forget, in this final comment on the reports here 

 published, to call attention to the great advantages of prepared- 

 ness and promptitude at seed-time, as being especially illustrated 

 by the subsequent fortunes of the wheat crop in a difficult season. 

 The report on page 100 is from Lord Ducie's Home Farm at 

 Whitfield, Gloucestershire, which I know to be as liable as any 

 of its class to suffer during excessive rains ; but Mr. Cobban, 

 who manages it — alone of all who have been good enough to 

 relate in these pages their experience of such land last year — 

 was able to declare — " We never had a finer seed-time than the 

 autumn of 1872." His clover lea had been all ploughed up in 

 August ; and the earlier rains of that long season of wet weather 

 beginning in October, from which so many others suffered, were 

 just sufficient to make his land fit for drilling. ^ 



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