Chap. ri. BY M. DE CHATEAU-VIEUX. 257 



Year 1755. 



" 'T'^HIS great increafe of the quantity of feed might be wondered 

 -•• at, if I did not obferve that this field was fowed with a 

 double turn of the drill-plough j by which means each bed (for 

 they were all wide enough to admit of it) had fix rows of plants 

 inilead of three, and confequently took up double the quantity of 

 feed. The event will fliew that I was right in fo doing. 



" This field was fowed on the 3 ill: of Augufl:,with i 57 pounds of 

 wheat. Nothing could make a finer appearance than this field did 

 at the beginning of winter. The plants, which had already branched 

 very abundantly, made the ground look furprifingly thick covered. 

 The ftrength of the flems, and the deep green of the blades made 

 me expedl extraordinary fuccefs. They continued thus promifing 

 during all the winter ; and the fame in February and March, and 

 to the middle of April. 



" The foil of this field is excellent : but it could not be preferved 

 from the fatal effeft of the fevere frofi;s in winter. I was extremely 

 furprifed when, going thither on the 27th of April, I found this 

 wheat, which I had {een twelve days before without the leaft fymp- 

 tom of decay, reduced to a moft deplorable condition : not a iingle 

 ftalk remained that was not dead, not a blade that was not withered. 

 Both the ftalks and the blades adhered fo little to the plants, that 

 one might rake them up in heaps, like grafs that has been mowed : 

 in fhort, nothing could be more melancholy than the appearance of 

 this field. 



" The eardi was extremely dry, and the weather very hot for 

 the feafon : from the i6th to the 24th of April, M. de Reaumur's 

 thermometer was almoft always at feven o'clock in the morning. 

 from 15 to 18 degrees above the freezing point. I am apt to think 

 that this uncommon temperature of the air compleated what the 

 hard frofls had begun, and which I did not perceive before. 



** My firft thought was, to fow the field again with barley, as I 

 had done in the cafe of the experiment. No. VI. but feeing that the 

 difafter was general, I examined mofl of the plants with great at- 

 tention. I ordered the earth to be dug, and^ found fome plants 

 quite dead, and others, in pretty great number, which had flill fome 

 vigour, and were provided with very good roots, and of which only 

 the ftems and blades had periflied. This gave me feme hope; 



L 1 which 



