610 



FARMER S' REGISTER 



hoeing is necessary, drilling is certainly so. But 

 this necessity is not found to tai<e place in the 

 north of France, (lie climate of which very nearly 

 resembles our own. After some years, those 

 <rrasses destroy it there as well as here ; but the 

 French think it much more profitable wlien ihat 

 happens to plough it up, lliau to insure a longer 

 possession by perpetual expense and attention. 



A Frenchman from Provence (Rocque), intro- 

 duced this broadcast culmre of lucerne, about 

 twenty-five years ago into England : I saw Jiis 

 crops, which were very fine, and equal to any in 

 the north of France. Mr. Arbuthnot, of Mitcham 

 had it also in the same method on a large scale, 

 and with considerable success ; other personshave 

 succeeded equally well, whose experimenis may 

 be found in the registers of my agricuhural tours 

 through England ; the method, however, has not 

 been generally pursued ; and the liiile lucerne to 

 be found in England is chiefly in drills. It cer- 

 tainly deserves inquiry, whether this is not the 

 reason of the cultivaiion at lar<ie not having made 

 a greater progress with us. The inlroduciion of 

 hoes and horse-hoes among crops that are clear- 

 ed but once a year from the land, and with no 

 necessity of mowing them close to the ground, ap- 

 pears to be much easier, and more practicable, than 

 hoeing and horse-hoeing a meadow cut and clear- 

 ed thrice in a year ; and vvhicli must of necessity 

 be mown quite closely. The preceding mmutes 

 seem to allow the conclusion, that the drill is not 

 necessary for this culture ; the broadcast succeeds 

 well in every part of France, in proportion to the 

 goodness of the soil and to management, like every 

 other crop. 



1 wish not to make this a didactic work, or I 

 could offer hints that might be of advantage possi- 

 bly to the culture in England ; I should apprehend 

 that a turnip or cabbage tiiliow is the right pre- 

 paration ; if the field be foul for two yeais in suc- 

 cession, led on the land, sown with barley or oats 

 three-fourths the common quantity of seed, say 

 two bushels ; should weeds appear the first year, 

 I would bestow 10s-. per acre in drawing, weeding 

 or otherwise extirpatmg them ; and alter that the 

 lucerne should take its chance. Explanations are 

 endless; a hint is sufiicient lt)r the practical hus- 

 bandman, without prejudices : I would never ma- 

 nure till the crop was two years old. — Its amelio- 

 rating effect is a singular feature in the preceding 

 notes ; the accounts are such as will surprise some 

 persons ; but where husbandry is not very well 

 understood, eflects so remarkable must be esti- 

 mated with caution ; and it may, without danger 

 of deception, be admiited, that a material reason 

 for this apparently exaggerated merit is, that 

 fallows are the common i)reparation for wheat. If 

 the French were well acquainted with the culture 

 of clover as a preparation lor wheat, nolliing very 

 marvellous would be found in lucerne. The in- 

 telligence at Pinjan indicates, in this respect, a 

 conduct that is truly excellent ; taking a tillage 

 prop of fodder, winter tares fijr instance, on the first 

 breaking up, is a practice thai merits the greatest 

 commendation. 



THE WONDERFUL CAI.IFOUNIAN WHEAT. 



As we expected, and as our readers might have 

 inferred from our remarks on this (not new, but 

 revived) capital suhjecl lor the operation, the Cali- 

 Ibrnian wheat humbug has been started, with aa 

 sanguine expectations and efforts, and as fair ap- 

 pearance of success, as if it were the earliest, in- 

 stead of being the latest humbug, and as if tiiis 

 wheal itself" had not been already several limes 

 before the public, and cried up as a wonder of pro- 

 ductiveness; and, when its worlhlessness had been 

 established, the subject dropj)ed, to be forgotten, 

 and remain unknown, until brought Ibrvvard again, 

 for a new race, to end in like manner. 



The American Farmer, of Sept. 30, contains 

 an account of this wheat, and an engraved repre- 

 sentation of a head ; and a wonderful head il cer- 

 tainly i? — a whapper — big enough to induce, by 

 the publication of this picture alone, a hundred 

 orders to be sent to the proprietor and salesman, 

 unless he has spoiled his market by fixing so very 

 low a price as five dollars for eacli head of wheat. 

 This is surprisingly low — indeed, dog-cheap — for a 

 wheat which (according to the statement copied 

 in our last number) produces at the rate of 230 

 bushels to the acre on poor sandy land, without 

 manure. 



While the sheet containing our remarks on this 

 wheat was passing through the press, we received 

 the letter which will be copied beknv, (omitting 

 the writer's name,) accompanied by two heads oi' 

 the Calilbrnian wheat, which we declined receiv- 

 ing under the conditions proposed. The ears 

 were not to compare, for size, with that afterwards 

 pictured in the American Farmer. The few 

 short or secondary lieads shooting out at the lower 

 extremity of the principal and upright head, were 

 in the same plane with it,, and not surrounding it, 

 as appears in the engraved representation, and as 

 in the Egyptian wheat, of which we witnessed a 

 fair and fully extended trial some thirty-five years 

 ago. But notwithstanding this small difference, 

 we have no doubt that the Califbrnian and Egyp- 

 tian wheat are the same, or from the same ori- 

 ginal stock ; and we know that the latter is not 

 only no monster of productiveness, but that it Jias 

 been abandoned, as worthless, by all who tried it. 

 At pages 51 and 52 of Vol. vi. of Farmers' Re- 

 gister, we gave, as one among sundry other hum- 

 bugs, a conspicuous place to, and a full account of, 

 the real and well ascertained character of this 

 Egyptian wheat. But all the exposure that can 

 possibly be thus made, in advance, will not kill or 

 even cripple a humbug, much less cure the pre- 

 vailing disposition of many of our countrymen to 

 pay lor their own personal experience therein. 

 The article in the American Farmer (a letter to 

 the editor) is as follows : 



