152 BRITISH HUSBANDRY. [Ch. X. 



shoots from spots where they may liave grown too thick*; or, if that 

 should be deemed too troublesome, by dibbling spring-wheat into the vacant 

 spaces. We have seen many instances of this being successfully performed ; 

 and one in which it occurred upon a drilled crop, which in the latter end of 

 April showed very little appearance of producing more than a return of the 

 seed. Tlie drills were at nine inches apart ; and about a bushel and a-half 

 an acre of Talavera wheat was re-drilled in the intervals. Both species 

 ripened at nearly the same time ; so nearly, indeed, that by allowing the 

 spring-wheat to stand a few days longer than would have been thought 

 prudent if it had been sown alone, and cutting the Lammas wheat rather 

 earlier than usual, a trifling loss was only incurred upon either, and their 

 joint produce was very abundant. 



SPRING-WHEAT 



Is frequently mixed by the dealers with the red Lammas winter species ; 

 for, although somewhat smaller in the grain and lighter in the bushel 

 than the latter, yet the colour is the same, the flour is equally good, 

 and their general appearance is so much alike, that it is difficult, if not 

 impossible, to discern the difference. The time of ripening is however dif- 

 ferent; and when sown in the autumn, it has been so frequently injured 

 by the frost, that the seed cannot be depended upon for the production of a 

 winter crop. Although too tender to bear the frost of a severe winter, it is 

 yet as quick in its progress to maturity as any species of lent corn, and 

 many farmers sow it instead of barley — particularly on lands on which the 

 good malting species of the latter grain cannot be grown; for they have 

 found, when the usual difference of price existed between wheat and barley, 

 that a crop of the former was generally more profitable. It is also frequently 

 sown when winter crops cannot be got off the ground in time, or when the 

 season is unfavourable to a winter sowing ; and after potatoes, it has been 

 found to succeed better than the winter kinds. It should, however, be 

 borne in mind that it is more exhausting ; so much more so, indeed, that 

 winter-wheat, if sown in the usual alternate succession, two years afterwards, 

 will not produce so good a crop as when succeeding either barley or oats. 



Spring-wheat does not appear to have been formerly known in England 

 as a distinct species, for it is not mentioned under that denomination in any 

 of the older books on husbandrv. It has however been long extensively 

 cultivated in the southern countries of Europe, and is there distinguished by 

 names which mark the difference between it and winter corn*. Of these 



* The transplantation of corn has been much ridiculed by practical men ; and, on a 

 large scale, it certainly would be attended with considerable trouble, thoujjh little more 

 than that of dibbling, which was formerly decried as impracticable, and is now not 

 uncommonly performed on some extensive farms. The great increase which takes place 

 in the transplantation of wheat depends upon the circumstance that each layer thrown 

 out in tillering, may be divided and treated as a separate plant ; so that a very small 

 quantity of seed will serve to sow an acre. Thus, some roots, lately transplanted by 

 ]\Ir. Lance, of Lewisbam. contain each, after being diviiled, 40 to 50 straws, with ears 

 that »re from G to 7 inches long. The account jiulili^hed in the 58th volume of the 

 " Philusopbical Transactions'" shows, that by an experiment on transplantation made 

 by i\Ir. Miller, of Cambridge, one grain of wheat produced 3^ pecks of corn, weighing 

 4 7 lb. 7 oz. ; and a recent statement bj' a cottager — mentioned in the " New Farmer's 

 Mairazine" — gives nearly similar results. 



The saving in seed might thus go far to meet the expense of additional labour : an 

 advantage in ]ioint of time would be gained in the sowing of land covered with turnips 

 to be eaten off' by sheep; and, above all, some additional employment would thus be 

 afforded to a number of hands now dependent upon parish sulisistence. 



■)• Thus in France it is called " B/ed de Mars;'' in Germany, " Sommer TVaitzen" 

 from the season in which it is sown; and in Portugal, it is also known as " Trigo de ti-es 

 n:ezes," or three-months' wheat. 



