QUANTITY OF SEED. Ill 



five quarters (forty bushels) to the acre, and have grown above 

 thirteen quarters of oats, (one hundred and four bushels,) and 

 above eight of barley, (forty bushels. ) Having shown the suc 

 cess, on an extensive scale, with thin sowing, I will explain why 

 it is that three pecks of seed-wheat must be much nearer the 

 correct quantity than ten or twelve pecks ; and that any surplus 

 of seed beyond a bushel must be very injurious to the latter 

 growth of the crop. The produce of one ear of thick-sown 

 wheat yields about forty grains, (I say thick-sown, for thin-sown 

 yields very much more,) and, therefore, the produce of an acre 

 (or twenty bushels, the ordinary average) must be, no matter 

 how much has been sown, the growth of the ears from one 

 fortieth, or two pecks of seed, (and that, too, is allowing only one 

 ear to grow from each grain, and forty grains from an ear.) 

 This being the fact, of what use are, I ask, or what becomes of, 

 the remaining eight or ten pecks of seed, which are commonly 

 sown? But, in allowing one ear only to grow from a grain of 

 seed, and each ear to contain only forty grains, I am far from 

 taking what in reality would be the produce ; for a single grain, 

 having room, will throw up ten or twelve ears, and these ears will 

 each contain from sixty to eighty grains ; and, supposing some of 

 my small allowance to be lost or destroyed, the deficiency of 

 plant is immediately met by the larger size of the ear, and by 

 the tillering which is made, and the additional ears so produced, 

 wherever room admits of the increase. 



&quot; Among the many proofs I have had of the advantages 

 from thin sowing, the following is a striking fact : In the 

 autumn of 1840, I had to sow with wheat a field of eight acres, 

 and I gave out seven bushels for the seed ; but owing to an error 

 of the drill-man in setting the drill, when he had sown half the 

 field, he found that he had not put on half the seed ; but that 1 

 might not discover, by the overplus, his error, he altered the 

 drill, so as to sow the rest on the remainder of the field ; and in 

 this way one half of the field had little more than two pecks to 

 the acre, while the rest had nearly five pecks. I did not know 

 of the error, and was surprised, in the winter, by finding part of 

 the field so thin, and, had not the rest of the field looked much 

 better, should have ploughed it up ; but at harvest the thinnest- 

 sown half proved the best ; and I should never have known the 

 error of sowing but for this foot having induced the carter to 

 point it out to me.&quot; 



