340 Cultivation of Arable Land- Graft- Seeds Time and Method of fowing. 



But in the experiment of an accurate agricultor, mentioned by the Rev. Mr. 

 Young,* in comparing different methods of vernal fowings, in which four acres 

 were fown with feeds alone, on peas and buck-wheat ploughed in the preceding 

 autumn; five acres with barley; and five more with the feeds put in alone with 

 out corn or manure: the portions fown alone were overrun with weeds, and only 

 preferved from being fmothered and destroyed by being eaten down by a dairy of 

 cows. 



Others, after repeatedly trying the experiment of fowing in the fpring with corn 

 and the autumn without, and from long and exteniive practice, conclude, &quot; that, 

 even if we were to have no regard to any other circumftance except thegrafs crop 

 alone, it would always be beft to fow it with fome kind of grain; but when we 

 confider likewife the lofs that the farmer thus fultains for want of a crop of grain; 

 the practice of fowing alone muft be looked upon as highly pernicious to the 

 farmer.&quot;-) 



It is probably in this laft refpect that the grcatcft difadvantage of the practice 

 confiftsjas without it the farmer can derive no immediate recompence for his great 

 expenfe of tillage and preparation of the land. 



Where the vernal fowing with other forts of crops is had recourfe to, barley is 

 that which is the moft ufually recommended, and &quot; there feems to be no queftion, 

 that barley is in general the fitted grain to be fown with grafs-feeds. The fame 

 tilth which anfvvers for the one is requifite for the other. Barley has a difpofi- 

 tion to loofen the texture of the ground in which it grows; a circumftance highly 

 favourable to the vegetation of grafs-feeds, which require a free and open foil to ex 

 tend their roots in; the tender and delicate fibres of which have much difficulty 

 in contending with the refiftance of a ftubborn foil. And this points out the reafon 

 why grafs-feeds fo frequently fail on ftrong land not in a proper ftate of cultivation. 

 Jn the choice of barley, that fort mould be preferred which runs le;&amp;gt;ft to ftraw and 

 which is the fooneft ripe.J&quot; But as from the grafly nature of the Stem, and the 

 large fize of the ear in this fort of grain, a considerable degree of clofenefs and 

 Shade muft constantly be kept up, it Should never be fown fo thickly as in other 

 cafes where there are no grafs-feeds. Some object to fowing grafs-feeds with barley 

 on other principles as thofe of its drawing its nourimment from the furface, which 

 is alfo the cafe with the grafs plants, and that in confequence they muft be greatly 

 retarded in their growth from the want of due fupport. Where the land is in a 



* Mr. Dixon of Belfoni. t An-.krfbn s Effays, vol. I. 



t Curtwrigltt in Communications to the Board, &c. vol. III. | Dalton in Ibid. 



