314 Chronicles of Science. | April, 
plant as the parent of the seed they use, yet the moment they 
approach the cereals, at once neglect the principle which in the other | 
case they know to be efficient and correct. 
A good deal of excitement has prevailed in Ireland and elsewhere, 
owing to an unusual liability on the part of the Swedish turnip to 
degenerate into a Rape-like plant, sending all its growth into leaf and 
stem and refusing to form a bulb. An action against the seedsman 
for damages, on the plea that the seed was at fault, resulted in a 
verdict for the defendant, the jury being unable to resist the evidence 
of the mischief being due to other causes. I1t appears that the 
circumstances of the soil may so differ in the same field that rows of 
plants, from seed sown out of the same seed-box from end to end 
across it, shall in some places exhibit uniformly good bulbs and 
elsewhere nothing but leaf and stem. It appears to us that even here 
a good deal of responsibility rests with the seedinan, and seed grown 
from successive generations of well-selected plants would have that 
power of resisting the mischievous influence of circumstances and of 
producing good bulbs in spite of them, according to a long continued 
habitude and bent, which Swede seed grown at hap-hazard is found 
to want. 
Seed-time calls to our remembrance the invention of Mr. Smith’s 
(of Woolston) capital combined seed drill and cultivator for draught 
by steam power. It is being extensively used this spring and will no 
doubt come largely into operation as a most efficient tool for sowing 
wheat upon a clean bean stubble, and even occasionally for planting 
beans upon a clean wheat stubble—certainly for sowing barley after 
the sheepfold—at one operation. It is the latest illustration that we 
have of the way in which steam power is applicable both to the 
economizing of farm labour and to the increase of its efficiency. 
The character of the wonderful harvest with which England was 
last year blest, appears from the following classification of the reports 
regarding it from all parts of the country which have been published 
by the ‘Mark Lane Express.’ It will be seen what an immense pre- 
ponderance of the reports regarding the wheat crop declare it to have 
been over average. 
REPORTS. | Wheat. Barley. Oats. 
Under average . . | 5 55 65 
AAVELaEO el a 3) «| 96 245 268 
Over average. . . | 523 261 200 
4. We have now to refer to points connected with the meat manu- 
facture. The high price of beef, mutton, and wool have all tended to 
promote in a wonderful degree the extension of the practice of high 
feeding, which has of late years enormously grown. No great increase of 
the imports of oilcakes, on which the chief dependence has been hitherto 
placed, seems from the following figures to be possible. 
