ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 91 



better succeed in preserving the symmetry and adjusting the 

 architectural proportions of the edifice. I shall therefore make 

 no excuse for saying here something more of spade husbandry, 

 and the extraordinary products of small pieces of land ; and it 

 must be admitted that it is by no means disconnected with the 

 subject of cottage allotments. 



The utmost productive capacity of an acre of land, in any 

 crop, has not yet been fully determined. The amounts attained 

 frequently surprise us : but we have not yet got to the end of 

 the line. 



One of the witnesses before the Parliamentary committee gives 

 an account of a man who supported himself, and wife, and son, 

 from two acres of land, for which he paid a rent for the two of 9 

 10s.; and in the course of seven years, he had saved enough from 

 the produce of his two acres to purchase two acres of land, for 

 which he paid about 30 to 40 per acre. He states, likewise, 

 his own personal knowledge of six acres of land, which, under 

 the spade cultivation, produced at the rate of fifty-two bushels of 

 wheat to the acre. Another witness testifies that on the estate 

 of Lord Howard, Barbot Hall, in Yorkshire, a rood of land was 

 dug and planted with wheat by his lordship s direction, and 

 twenty-eight bushels of wheat were obtained from this quarter of 

 an acre, which would be at the extraordinary and unheard-of 

 rate of one hundred and twelve bushels per acre. 



The authenticity, or rather accuracy, of such a statement as 

 this may well be considered as questionable ; but I have the 

 pleasure of presenting one, exhibiting a most extraordinary yield, 

 on which full reliance may be placed. 



In visiting Horsham, (the last summer,) in the county of 

 Sussex, my attention was strongly attracted by two small pieces 

 of wheat in a garden by the road-side, exhibiting an extraordinary 

 luxuriance ; and I have been able to obtain a detailed history of 

 its culture and yield, through the politeness of C. S. Dickens, Esq., 

 of Coolhurst, near Horsham. 



The seed of this wheat was brought from Australia, being the 

 product of some wheat which had been sent there two or three 

 years before. The quantity of land sown, in one of the pieces, 

 was thirty-four square yards. The wheat was dropped in rows 

 nine inches apart, and in holes six inches apart, and only one 

 grain in a place. The number of corns planted was 682, out of 



