Remarks on different Grains. 23 



though the grain on it was good, and thought by 

 several farmers from good farming counties, equal to 

 the best they had seen. The heads were large, but 

 it did not tiller or stool, as in former years. 



I rolled my seed wheat in plaster, and, having wet 

 the grain before rolling, it swelled, and the sower ap- 

 prehended he should be deceived as to the quantity of 

 seed per acre. This might have been the case. I 

 left about half an acre, sown with wheat, unplastered. 

 The difference might be seen at any distance from 

 whence the crop was visible. That rolled in plaster, 

 shot into heads a week sooner than the other, and al- 

 ways retained a superiority. The shirts of the reap- 

 ers were redened with the rust off the unplastered 

 wheat. But not a straw of that plastered was in the 

 least discoloured. Its backwardness as to maturation, 

 which was very perceptible, exposed the unplastered 

 wheat to be attacked by the rust. 1 have frequently 

 experienced the good effects of rolling wheat or other 

 grain in plaster, but I have never found any advan- 

 tage (except on buckwheat) in strewing the gypsum 

 on grain as a top-dressing. I was formerly of opinion, 

 and succeeded under it, that thin sowing was, in clean 

 and fertile ground, the best. But I am now convinced 

 that, by some shift of circumstances, and change of 

 seasons, our fields, in whatever state of either fertility 

 or poverty, require more seed than we have heretofore 

 been accustomed to sow. I shall encrease my quantity 

 generally hereafter ; never having sown more than a 

 bushel per acre. I will also make some particular 

 comparative experiments, as to quantities, on different 



