CROPS. 235 



thatcher s art is a matter of great skill and experience ; and as 

 long as wooden barns are erected among us at so small an ex 

 pense, and with our off-hand modes of doing things, it can 

 scarcely be expected that we shall have patience to adopt it. 

 I can only add, that I know no agricultural picture more beauti 

 ful than a neat farm-house in the midst of a crowded and well- 

 thatched stack-yard. 



I was to have said something of the different kinds of wheat ; 

 but it would not be possible to find any universal or unanimous 

 preference, as different kinds are popular in different localities. 

 Hunter s wheat, in the Lothians, &quot; may be considered the most 

 extensively cultivated of any genuine or unmixed variety in 

 Scotland.&quot; It takes its name from the person who first propa 

 gated it by selection ; and it is said to have been cultivated on 

 one farm more than sixty years. It weighs from sixty-four to 

 sixty-five and a half pounds per bushel, and has produced at the 

 rate of forty-six bushels to an English statute acre. It is a 

 winter wheat. 



Mr. Skirving, the eminent seedsman of Liverpool, writes to me 

 that he considers the Chidham wheat as the best to cultivate. 

 This is known in Scotland as the pearl wheat. The grain 

 weighs about sixty-five pounds per bushel. &quot;It is a prolific 

 variety, a free grower, and tillers freely in the spring.&quot; 



The Whittington wheat presents a very beautiful grain. It 

 was here called a spring wheat, because it had been sown in Feb 

 ruary, and was mistaken for what is called a spring wheat in 

 New England, and not sown there until April, when it universally 

 failed. It is, however, a late wheat, and, with us, should certainly 

 be sown in the autumn. 



The Talavera wheat is an early wheat, and much valued. 

 a The bread made from it,&quot; says Colonel Le Couteur, whose care 

 ful experiments on the cultivation of different kinds of wheat are 

 well known to the agricultural public, &quot; is incomparably the 

 best that I have met with. It is light, very white, and preserves 

 its moisture almost as long as bread made from spring wheat. 

 It is, moreover, so sweet and well-flavored as to appear to some 

 palates more like cake than ordinary bread.&quot; It has yielded at 

 the rate of fifty-two bushels per acre, weighing sixty-one pounds 

 per bushel. Under the cultivation of another farmer, it produced 

 thirty-six bushels per acre. Its cultivation has, however, been 



