CROPS. 205 



There is another distinction of wheats into autumn, or those 

 which are sown in the autumn, arid spring wheats, those which 

 are sown in the spring. But this is undoubtedly an accidental 

 and not a permanent or constitutional distinction. With care in 

 the selection of the seed earliest ripe, after a succession of seasons, 

 what was winter wheat may be converted into spring wheat ; 

 and by sowing spring wheat in the autumn, its season of ripen 

 ing will be retarded, and after a while it will take its place 

 among winter wheats.* 



Of the average yield of wheat per acre throughout the king 

 dom, it is difficult to speak with any confidence, as no exact 

 returns are collected, and conclusions of this sort must be almost 

 wholly conjectural. Nor do I see what useful lesson is to be 

 learned from combining the results of poor and negligent with 

 those of the most liberal and skilful cultivation, and striking a 

 general average between them, except to afford an excuse or pal 

 liative for the neglect and indolence of those who do not culti 

 vate their lands as well as they might. What we require to 

 know is, what can be done ; and this is determined beyond all 



ligent laborer who bakes his own bread from seconds knows this well ; it keeps 

 him better up to his work than whiter flours.&quot; W, H. Hyclt, Esq., Royal 

 JlgriculturalJournal, vol. h. pt. i. p. 144. 



&quot; Proust found French wheat to contain 12.5 per cent, of gluten ; Vogel found 

 that the Bavarian contained 24 per cent.; Davy obtained 19 per cent, from winter, 

 and 24 from summer, wheat ; from Sicilian, 21, and from Barbary wheat, 19 per 

 cent. The meal of Alsace wheat contains, according to Boussingault, 17.3 

 per cent of gluten ; that of wheat grown in the Jardin des Plantes, 26.7 ; and 

 that of winter wheat, 3.33 per cent. An increase of animal manure gives rise, 

 not only to an increase in the number of seeds, but also to a most remarkable 

 difference in the proportion of the substances containing nitrogen, such as the 

 gluten which they contain. One hundred parts of wheat grown on a soil 

 manured with cow-dung (a manure containing the smallest quantity of nitrogen) 

 afforded only 11.95 parts of gluten, and 64.34 parts of amylin, or starch, while 

 the same quantity grown on a soil manured with human urine yielded the maxi 

 mum of gluten, namely, 35.1 per cent&quot; lAebig, p. 94. 



* We must guard here against a mistake which, I know, has been made, and 

 with much loss and vexation. The Whittington wheat is called a spring wheat, 

 but it must be sowed in February. We on the other side of the water, hearing 

 of its excellent qualities, and supposing it to be a spring wheat in our sense of the 

 term, sowed it in the last of March and in April, and it did not come into head, as the 

 season was too short. Many persons blamed the seedsmen for having deceived 

 them in selling them a winter for a spring wheat ; but the mistake arose, as errors 

 and faults often arise, from a different use of the terms in the two countries. 



VOL. II. 18 



