458 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



that which is sown after tobacco or hemp, that it may gain 

 strength ; and it is the custom where wheat is sown after tobac 

 co, to spread the stalks of the tobacco crop upon the field, where 

 they remain until the spring, when they are removed. I do 

 not know the advantage of this, unless as a protection against 

 the cold. 



Nothing is more prejudicial to the success of a wheat crop, 

 than excess of wet ; either stagnant on the surface, or in the 

 soil. I have as yet met with no cases of underdraining or sub- 

 soiling in France, but the value of this immense improvement 

 will presently be understood. Where the soil is clayey and wet, 

 wheat is sowed in beds or stitches, and the drains between them 

 kept clear. Experiments have been made in some parts of France 

 for the irrigation of wheat, and with success, where a porous 

 soil or a sufficient drainage immediately carried off the water ; 

 but of course it operated most injuriously where the soil or the 

 surface retained too much wet. 



The cultivation of spring wheat, unless the land is prepared 

 in the autumn, is liable to many objections. The spring season 

 is crowded with labors which must then be accomplished or not 

 at all. Land ploughed in the autumn, which is, from its posi 

 tion or the nature of the soil, liable to retain the water of winter, 

 is difficult to be worked even by the harrow in the spring, and 

 in an unhealthy condition for being sowed. Spring wheat, 

 though making an equally good flour, and for some purposes 

 more esteemed than any other, seldom yields so abundant a crop 

 as autumn-sown wheat. 



In some instances, wheat is carefully weeded and cleaned in 

 the spring ; but this, in examples under my observation, has not 

 been executed by a machine, nor very perfectly done. Nothing 

 can be more beautiful than the cultivation, in some parts of Eng 

 land and Scotland, where wheat is sown in perfectly straight 

 lines by a machine, and then carefully cleaned by a horse-hoe. 

 Though I have seen good crops of wheat in France, the cultiva 

 tion in numerous cases was far from being clean. When the 



stalk of wheat being tender, and the wheat therefore more liable to fall, is said 

 to be owing to a deficiency of silex in the soil. But there are few soils where 

 this deficiency exists. I give these opinions as opinions resting upon respec 

 table authority, but without vouching for them. 



