76 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. VI. 



and consequently the weeding may be done by very inexperienced 

 persons ; while, broad-cast, it can only be entrusted to those who are 

 very careful. 



That, by its admitting the use of the various implements used for 

 horse-hoeing, it affords the opportunity for cleansing the ground from 

 weeds, of earthing up the plants and pulverizing the soil during a 

 great portion of the growth of leguminous crops, and thus not only 

 assists the plants in their progress to maturity, but confers on light 

 soils nearly all the benefits of a summer-fallow. 

 In opposition to this, however, it has been contended — 



That, in regard to the argument in favour of the preference to be 

 given to drilling over the sowing of grain broad-cast — because the 

 seed is better covered, more equally distributed, and deposited at a 

 more regular depth — it may be observed, that if harrows be used of 

 a construction appropriate to the nature of the soil, the seed will be 

 sufficiently covered, and deposited at any given depth with much regu- 

 larity ; that some latitude should also be allowed in this respect, 

 as the superincumbent soil is not always of equal weight, nor in 

 an equal state of pulverization, and that the saving of seed is nearly 

 balanced by the difference of expense between the two modes of ope- 

 ration. 



That if dung be laid in drills, although it may thus be more effec- 

 tually applied to that crop, it will be less effectual to those which 

 succeed ; and that the sparing use of it is of no real advantage to the 

 land, which can only be benefited in proportion to the quantity em- 

 ployed. 



That, although the admission of air is beneficial to the growth of all 

 leguminous crops and to pulse, which carry their seeds from the bottom 

 of the stalk to the top, yet doubts may be entertained whether the 

 influence of the atmosphere be equally necessary to white corn, the 

 ears of which are so placed as to be always accessible to the air in 

 whatever position the plants may stand. That it may also be doubted 

 whether their being crowded together in rows, instead of allowing 

 them to spread over the whole surface of the land, and thus to draw 

 their nourishment equally from every portion of the soil, may not 

 rather be considered as a disadvantage. That although drilled crops 

 may be less subject to be laid by storms of rain than those which are 

 sown broad-cast, yet the latter suffer less from the wind * ; and that, if 

 the grain be more equal in the sample, yet if the drills be wide apart, 

 the general quality is inferior to the broad-cast. That, although there 

 may be some slight advantage in the reaping, yet the chief labour is 

 in the binding, and depends upon the bulk of the crop. 



That in regard to hand-weeding corn, the operation is useless if it 

 be intended to clean the land from root-weeds, and seldom necessary 



' * " Drilled grain crops, from wanting an equable and general support among their 

 own stems, owing to the distance between the rows, are more liable than those sown 

 broad-cast to sutier injury from heavy rains and strong blasts of wind, by which their 

 stems are apt to be broken down irregularly and interlaced among each other, which is, 

 in Scotland, termed knee-shackled. Owing to the same circumstance, they are more 

 liable to be root-fallen or wind-waved, their coronal roots becoming disengaged from the 

 soil by a circular motion or waving, from the irregular and changing impulse of the 

 wind — a circumstance which seldom or never happens to a regular and close crop." — 

 Gen. Rep. of Scotland, vol. i. p. 369. " It seems pretty well ascertained that, while crops 

 are standing, the broad-cast will suffer less from wind, the rows operating upon one 

 another like skutchers." — Siaclair's Code of Agric. 3ded. Append, p. 64. 



