30 Cultivation nf Aralle Land. Wheat Blight in* 



This is rendered ftill more probable as the caufe of this mifchievous difeafe 

 from the obfervations which have lately been prefented to the public by the 

 Right Honourable Sir Jofeph Banks in a valuable pamphlet, acccompanied with 

 magnified reprefentations of the difeafed ftates of the grain. And various inte- 

 refting facts on the fubject may likewife be feen in the forty-fourth volume of the 

 Annals of Agriculture. 



As moifture, and a confined ftate of air from fhade or other fimilar caufes have 

 ebvioufly much effect in producing the mildew in wheat and other grain crops, 

 it fcems not improbable that the beft method of preventing or removing it 

 would be that of not having the plants too much crowded together, but thin 

 and open, fo that light may be fully admitted, and a free circulation of air take 

 place among the plants. This may be the moft perfectly accomplifhed by the 

 corn being fown in rows, with fufficient diftances between them. Therefore on 

 lands that are fubject to mildew, the moft advantageous method may be that of 

 fowing the grain by means of the drill, and not too thickly in the rows. Where 

 the difeafe is prefent, the moft advifeable method, in order to its removal, may 

 .be that of thinning out the weakeft plants as much as pofllble, that more air and 

 light may be let in, and by that means the ftrength and vigour of the crop be 

 increafed and die difeafe eradicated. 



It has, indeed, been lately fuggefted, that, &quot; as the greater dampnefs of fbme 

 land fupplies one permanent caufe of mildew, as well as its being too much over- 

 fhadowed by thick foliage, the methods of prevention muft conlift in properly 

 draining the land, and ufing drier kinds of manure, as coal afhes and bone 

 afti es, as well as by thinning the crops.&quot; And it may be advifeable, in the 

 fame view, ct to fow early in the feafon, for the purpofe of procuring forward 

 crops, as this difeafe is faid more to injure late crops, owing to the greater 

 dampnefs of the ground in auturnn.f 



The blight J is an affection of the vegetable kind that not unfrequently at 

 tacks wheat crops in feafons that are more than ordinarily moift. It has been 

 found, that in this difeafe, the green blades and ftalks are befet with fmall 

 fpots of a black or rufty colour, before the ear becomes affected ; and that after 

 the grain has begun to fhoot, and is fairly come into ear, many of the heads 

 are often completely empty, but, in fome cafes, only empty in the upper half, 



: It would probably be better, and certainly more economical, tp make ufe of bones in tbe ftate 01 

 a coarfe powder. 



t Darwin s Phytologia, p. 121. 



* The urcdo frumenti of fome writer*, 



