21ie Lois JVeedon Plan of Growing/ Wlicat. 583 



cultural facts and practices. They teach us, too, liow ;2:rcat, in 

 certain kinds of soil, must be at once the inherent wealtli and the 

 power of accumuhition and of yielding up to the growing crop 

 the constituents upon which it feeds. 



In the year 1851 about three acres were selected for our pur- 

 pose, in a field adjoining tliat which has been devoted for so 

 innny years to the continuous growth of wheat with and without 

 artificial or other manures. The soil of these fields is a heavy 

 loam, with a subsoil of stiff reddish yellow clay, which rests upon 

 chalk. The depth from the surface to the chalk is perhaps never 

 less than six or seven feet, and frequently twice as much ; the 

 natural drainage is, however, good. These soils, without being 

 of high, arc still of good average quality, and capable of growing 

 good wheat crops. They are well suited, therefore, to test the 

 degree of applicability to other soils, of plans proposed for ex- 

 tensive adoption in the cultivation of that crop. The field selected 

 was under wheat in 1850, and was a bare fallow in 1851, prior to 

 commencing the Lois Weedon operations in the autumn of that 

 year. For the first crop the land v/as ploughed and harrowed in 

 the ordinary way, and then set out in three feet strips ; of these, 

 every other one was sown with three rows of wheat a loot apart, 

 and the intermediate ones were left as ^<///o?(7 spaces, to be prepared 

 for the second year's crop during the growth of the first. It will 

 be seen, that, as each strip was three feet wide, and as the three 

 rows at a foot apart would only occupy two feet, there were in 

 inct four-l'eet fallow spaces, as. is recommended by Mr, Smith in 

 some cases, instead of only three, as adopted in his own practice. 



The first sowing was in Septendier 1851, and, not having the 

 special implements since recommended for carrying out the plan 

 on the large scale, the seed was dihhled in, at a distance of two to 

 three inches apart in the rows. One portion of the experimental 

 ground had a single seed dropped into each hole, thus conforming, 

 as far as possible, to Mr. Smith's mode of sowing single seeds at 

 two to three inclies apart in lines made with his })resser ; another 

 antl larger portion of tlie plot had two seeds in each hole. It was 

 found that the one-seed portion took little more tlian half a peck 

 of seed per acre, that is, half a peck to the moiety of the acre 

 seeded at one time. The llev. Mr. Smith, however, seems always 

 to have calculated upon two pecks of seed being used, even though 

 sown, as al)ove described, in single grains, at two to three inclies 

 apart in"the rows. And although, where we sowed two seeds in 

 each hole, or twice as much as is recommended, we got on little 

 more than a peck to the acre, yet it is but justice to Mr, Smith 

 to state, that he now finds a more liberal seeding necessary for 

 salety and security from blight, to which, as will alterwarils l)c 

 seen, our j)rodu((> obtained on this plan was so sul)ject. 



