78 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. VI. 



becoming root-fallen. Another objection has also been urged with much 

 weight against the drilling of white crops — "That as their roots seek their 

 pasture more by spreading than by penetrating to any great depth, of 

 course the less they are crowded the better they will thrive ; and the plants 

 in the rows are much more crowded than they would have, been had they 

 been sown broad-cast;" and therefore " there is no necessity for the seed 

 being put into the ground with such interspaces *." 



That great objects are to be attained by drilling all kinds of pulse and 

 vegetable crops, there can be no manner of doubt ; for, by the opportunity 

 which it affords of horse-hoeing between the rows, it certainly can, under 

 skilful management, be made to supersede the use of bare fallows upon all 

 light soils f. Doubts may, however, be entertained, from the reasons 

 which we have already stated, whether it is equally advantageous to corn 

 crops; and heavy clays present strong objections, particularly to the drill- 

 ing of wheat : nor does such land require hoeing like sandy soils, in which 

 the seeds of weeds ai"e sure to vegetate. That it will assist in keeping the 

 land clean must be readily admitted, as well as that it will leave, it in fine 

 order for the sowing of grass-seeds, which latter point is unquestionably 

 of great importance ; yet the practice must still be necessarily governed by 

 circumstances, and can neither be held out as a universal rule for imitation, 

 nor should any man be censured for ignorance who refuses to implicitly 

 adopt it. It is difficult to determine how far the influence of particular 

 seasons may affect experiments in particular years, and it has been justly 

 observed by a writer whom we have more than once quoted, that it is this 

 influence, and not the want of observation in farmers, that has hitherto pre- 

 vented, and ever will prevent, agriculture from being reduced to one inva- 



* Stevenson's Survey of Surrey, p. 158. See also vol. ii. of this work, p. 50. 

 '" + Upon the subject of a general adoption of the drill husbandry, which has been 

 recommended as a substitute for fallows, we should feel that we were not doing justice 

 to a proposition of such importance, if we refrained from quoting the opinion of that 

 intelligent farmer, Brown of Markle, who thus expresses himself m his Treatise on Rural 

 Affairs: — " In the tirst place, let any person reflect on the condition of all land incum- 

 bent on a retentive subsoil, in an average of years, when spring seeds are sown. Land of 

 this description, which has been ploughed in winter, will, in the spring season, when 

 ploughed a second time, turn up raw and wet, even when the surface is tolerably dry, and 

 in a workable state. The new turued-iip furrow is tough and waxy in the first instance, 

 but afterwards, especially if a hot sun prevails, the surface becomes hard like a brick, even 

 before the bottom or subsoil is free of the superabundant moisture there accumulated, tinder 

 these circumstances, the processes of drilling cannot be executed upon clay soils with the 

 slightest prospect of advantage. It is even difficult to foim drills for beans in many sea- 

 sons, though this grain is generally drilled at wide intervals. To drill wheat, barley, or 

 oats upon clay soils in the spring months, may be regarded as a measure physically impos- 

 sible. Such grains must necessarily be drilled with narrow intervals — say nine or twelve 

 inches; and though this is practicable on light soils during dry weather, it cannot, with 

 the slightest prospect of success, be executed upon those of a different description. The 

 correctness or justice of these arguments will not be questioned by any person versant 

 in the culture of heavy lands, or by those who have paid attention to the difficulties of 

 performing seed-work upon them in a majority of cases. 



" In the second place, were we to allow, for argument's sake, that the drilling of grain 

 was a practicable measure upon wet lands, still it remains to be inquired how such soils 

 can be cleaned in a satisfactory manner, when the intervals betwixt the drills must neces- 

 sarily be narrow and confined, admitting little more than a narrow hand-hoe, which 

 never can extirpate root-weeds, or free the ground of its original inhabitants. Were a 

 horse-hoe to be used, the surface would break up in lumps or massy pieces, to the 

 destruction of the grain plants, whilst, alter all, a hoeing of a deepness sufficient to 

 destroy the weeds could not be given. If the interval were wide enough to allow a 

 horse-hoe room for work, the produce of the crop would be proportiouably curtailed, while 

 the quality of the grain would be materially injured from a continuance of tillering, till 

 a very late period." — Vol. i. p. 205. 



