498 



WHE 



WHE 



But setting of wheat is reckoned 

 bj gome of the English as a great 

 improvement in fiusbandry. A 

 Norfolk farmer one year set fifty- 

 seven acres. The superiority of 

 his crop, both in quantity and qua- 

 lity, was so great that it induced 

 him the following year to set three 

 hundred acres, and be has continu- 

 ed in the practice of setting ever 

 since. This noble experiment was 

 the means of introducing the prac- 

 tice in the vicinity, and to a con- 

 siderable extent. Though the set 

 crops appear very thin during au- 

 tumn and winter, (he plants tiller BiUd 

 spread prodigiously in the spring. 

 The ears and the urain are larger, 

 and specifically heavier per bushel 

 than other wheat. 



The lands on which this method 

 is most properous are, either after 

 clover stubble, or on which trefoil 

 and grass seed were sow n the spring 

 before last. These grounds, after 

 the usual manuring, are once turn- 

 ed over by the plough in an ex- 

 tended flag or turf, ten inches 

 wide; along which a man, who is 

 called a dibbler, with two setting 

 irons, somewhat bigger than ram- 

 rods, but considerably bigger at 

 the lower end, and pointed at the 

 extremity, steps backward along 

 the turf, and makes the holes, about 

 four inches asunder each way, ar.d 

 an inch deep. Into these holes 

 the droppers drop two grains, which 

 is quite suflicient. 'J'hus three 

 pecks of grain is enough for mi 

 acre. The regularity of its rising 

 gives opportunity for weeding or 

 hand-hoeing. 



This method is advantageous 

 when seed corn is dear. Sir Thomas 



Bevor found the produce to be two 

 bushels per acre more than from 

 sown wheat, having much less small 

 corn mixed with it ; and it fetches 

 a higher price three pence per 

 bushf^l. The expense of dibbhng 

 an acre is 10s. 



Another new method of cultiva- 

 tion is, propagating wheat by di- 

 viding and transplanting its roots. 

 " On the second of J une 1 766, Mr#. 

 C. Miller sowed some grains of the 

 common red wheat; and on the 

 eighth of August a single plant was 

 taken up and separated into eigh- 

 tef^n parts, and each part planted 

 separately. These plants having 

 pushed out several side shoots, by 

 about the middle of September, 

 some of them were taken up and 

 divided, and the rest of them be- 

 tween that time and the middle of 

 October. This second division 

 produced sixty-seven plants. These 

 plants remained through the win- 

 ter, and another division of them, 

 made between the middle of March 

 and the middle of April, produced 

 five hundred plants. They were 

 divided no further, but permitted 

 to remain. The plants were in 

 general stronger than any wheat in 

 the fields. Some of them pro- 

 duced upwards of one hundred ears 

 from a single root. Many of the 

 ears measured seven inches in 

 length, and contained between sixty 

 and seventy grains. 



The whole number of ears, 

 which, by this process, were pro- 

 duced from one grain of wheat, 

 was 21,109; which yielded three 

 pecks and three quarters of clear 

 corn, the weight of which was 47 

 lb. 7 oz. : And from a calculation 



