‘On Wild Garlick. 195 
mn 
state, when just beginning to shoot ; and, by this means, 
to backen or destroy it. He believed that it was the 
ploughing, and not the oats, which produced the effect. 
But, having a large dairy, fed in the winter with oats 
and corn, ground together in certain proportions, he 
was of the sect of oat farmers; and of course found 
reasons to justify the practice. An oat fallow, he allow- 
ed, required more dung than common, to restore what 
the oats had exhausted. But he said, “ with plenty of 
lime and dung one can farm as he pleases.”? However 
true this may be, the question still remains to be solved. 
—What is the best course for those to pursue, who 
either have, or have not, this plenty of lime and dung? 
For myself I answer—not to sow an exhausting crop of 
dats, to be succeeded by another culmiferous* crop 
former. Its head contains a multitude of cloved seeds : and, on 
this account most resembles the bulbs of the allium or gar- 
lick. But these seeds are entirely different from those of the 
onion. It is destructively prolifick ; for several bulbs will be 
formed from one clove of the head. 
- There is an old tradition, that the Swedes first imported 
and sowed it here, for early pasture-—But [have always 
believed it to be a spontaneous native product; the compa- 
hion, if not the offspring of poverty ; originating in worn and 
exhausted lands. Swedes having been early settlers, theit* 
lands were the first exhausted ; and in them the gariick made 
its first appearance, of course. 
“ REP. 
* Culmiferaus crops are those of grain enclosed in chaffy 
husks. They are fibrous rooted and exhausting. They give 
little to the earth ; and draw from it the stores of vegetable 
food, which it had collected. 
