CROPS. 203 



itself into the simple question, whether it will prove sufficiently 

 remunerative to compensate the labor and attention. The reply 

 to this question will of necessity be qualified by many local cir 

 cumstances, and must be left to every farmer s own decision. 



CVL-- CROPS. 



The island of Great Britain produces, of bread crops, wheat, 

 oats, barley, and rye ; and perhaps in no other part of the world 

 has the cultivation as yet reached a greater degree of perfection. 

 I am, however, far from believing that it has attained its highest 

 point : and, if the extraordinary crops produced in some parts of 

 the country evince what can, the inferior yield in other parts, 

 without any ascertainable hinderances of climate or soil, show 

 what should, be done. I believe there is no part of the island 

 in which wheat may not be successfully cultivated. In the 

 north, oats are more cultivated than wheat, and constitute there 

 the principal bread of the people at large. Oaten bread, how 

 ever, in that country, is found under certain forms at the tables 

 of the rich and of the higher ranks, as well as among the 

 lower classes ; and though I consider it altogether inferior to the 

 bread of Indian corn, and such, indeed, is my honest opinion of 

 wheat bread also, yet it is agreeable to the taste, and its riulri- 

 tiousness is undoubted. In Ireland, where fine wheat is grown, 

 and where also a considerable portion of oatmeal is consumed, 

 the food of a large mass of the people is potatoes, and of this 

 not always a full supply. 



1. WHEAT, however, is to be considered as the standard grain, 

 and the great crop of England, upon which the arable farmer 

 mainly depends for his money returns from his farm, and for the 

 payment of his labor and rent, and to which, therefore, his at 

 tention is constantly and principally directed. 



Of wheats there are great varieties. In the Agricultural Mu 

 seum at Edinburgh, first established by the most commendable 

 enterprise of Mr. Lawson, but now the property of the Highland 



