82 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



tembnr. The early part of Oc tf)bcr, however, is well suited to llie sowing of wheat, and it 

 may be continued till the middle of November, or later. 



^Vheat may be advantageously sown after potatoes. This crop is generally removed from 

 the ground early in October, which admits of the wheat being sown before winter. In the 

 case of this crop, tlie laud being first harrowed, it is then formed into ridges, and the wheat 

 is sown upon these, precisely as in the (;ase of summcr-iidlow. 



Every one must have observed how much wheat is liable to be " thrown out" 

 in the spring, resulting in serious diminution of the crop. To guard against that, 

 a writer in the Farmer's Magazine says he sowed his wheat by a plow drawn by 

 two horses, five or six inches deep, and covered it with the neat furrow at ten or 

 eleven inches breadth. He never harrowed it after sowing, and " horse's foot 

 never trod on it." The wheat, he says, was covered by the deepest part of the 

 furrow, and, to the surprise of himself and neighbors, tlte wheat thus sown and 

 covered came up sooner than wheat sown on the same day, in the common broad- 

 cast way, on some adjacent land of similar quality, treated in other respects in 

 the same manner as to plowing, liming, &c. through the summer. He goes on 

 to remark : 



As it is well known that wheat prefers a stiff soil to a loose one, I attributed the rapidity 

 of gi'owth to the stiff soil suiting the wheat more than the loose broadcast ; for it not only 

 came sooner, but kept the start it got, and now, after heavy rains and frost, looks better — 

 the ground not being nin together and battered with the vsanter rains, as the broadcast wheat 

 is ; and, having examined it during severe frost, I found that the roots of the plant had not 

 suffered by it, wliUe that sown broadcast had. The roots of the drilled wheat were actuedly 

 considerably longer than the broadcast sown the same day ; I have, therefore, little doubt 

 that I shall most probably have a stiuiding crop of wheat in place of a lodged one, or at least 

 not so soon lodged, and that I shall escape the root falling from the s]iring frost. It is well 

 known that in England an insti-ument called the pressor is used in light soils to linn the 

 ground, and also that .sheep are often pastured or diiven over it for that pui-pose. Another 

 advantage of this plan of sowing is, that all trouble and time of harrowing is saved ; and, if 

 sudden rain comes on, the sowing is stojiped at once, without the risk of bemg half hiir- 

 rowed ; the ground is also much more cloddy in w^intei' — thus aflbrduig shelter to the yoxmg 

 plants, and an excellent cover for gi-ass seeds, if sown in a dry, bleak, frosty morning, with- 

 out harrowing, by the decomposition and falling down or mouldering of the ground, as the 

 day advances, and the effects of the sun are felt on it. My experiment extended over two 

 fields, comprehending about twenty acres ; and I haiTowed part of the one field, and I think 

 the part unharrowed looks better than the harrowed : however, time will show which has 

 succeeded best. I was thrice stopped by rain during the sowing, but, as I sjiid above, felt 

 no inconvenience from it. 



In apparent corroboration of the above as to the object of plowing in wheat, 

 Mr. Mills, five miles out on the Jamaica road from Williamsburgh on the East 

 River, whose farm is the one to which we have alluded, says he plowed in, late 

 in October, the lot of Mediterranean wheat last referred to, and which, it was 

 judged, would yield thirty bushels after a crop of a f/action over 200 of potatoes. 



This wheat, sowed late in October, and plowed in, did not come up to show 

 itself until the spring. We should judge it to be very nearly five feet high over 

 the entire field. 



Proposing to publish in our next the prize essay of Professor Henslow on the 

 diseases of wheat, we must draw this dissertation to a close by quoting from 

 Doctor Undeiuiill, President of the Westchester Agricultural Society, a prac- 

 tical and scientific agriculturist, one who so far pays respect to the profession as 

 to believe that it loses nothing either of profit or dignity, by acting on the per- 

 suasion that it, too, is an art that has its principles to he consulted, ils right and 

 its wrong way of proceeding, and requires and will reward investigation and 

 study. We would sooner learn the right way, finally, through the errors of such 

 men, than to go right, blindfolded and by chance ; though we apprehend no error 

 in this case ; on the contrary, it agrees, for the most part, with what we should 

 have written, though not as well, from our own observation and the beet authorities. 



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