YIELD 425 



greatest area is sown in October, but in the warmer southern parts of 

 Great Britain, on well-drained soils in high condition, sowing in the first 

 half of November is often practised and gives good results. In such 

 districts if the grain is sown earlier the plants are liable to become " winter 

 proud," or too luxuriant in spring, a condition which frequently leads to 

 the " lodging " of the crop before harvest. 



Methods of Sowing. Three methods of sowing are in use, namely, 

 (i) broadcasting, (2) drilling, and (3) dibbling. The system of scattering 

 the seed broadcast by hand is the most ancient method, and is still prac- 

 tised wherever wheat is grown. It is a rapid method but involves the use 

 of more seed than the other methods. 



Drilling in rows, first introduced by Jethro Tull towards the middle 

 of the eighteenth century, has now almost entirely superseded the broad- 

 cast system. Less seed is needed, and all the seed is deposited at a fairly 

 uniform depth in the soil when this method is adopted. Moreover, it 

 allows of the hoeing and cleaning of the crop during growth, and on this 

 account leads to a larger yield per acre than the broadcast system in which 

 the weeds remain unchecked. 



Where the land is in a clean state and in a high state of fertility both 

 methods of sowing give similar results. 



Dibbling, or depositing the seed by hand in holes made in the soil by 

 a blunt-pointed tool, had its advocates in former times. The holes were 

 made in rows 5-9 inches apart, and 3-5 inches asunder in the rows, 

 and two or three grains were dropped into each hole. Six to seven pecks 

 of seed were used, the work being carried out by the labourer and his 

 children. 



Size of Grain. The influence of the size and weight of the in- 

 dividual grains upon the size of the plants which they produce and 

 the amount of grain which these yield has often been the subject of 

 research. 



The average weight of 100 grains of Bread Wheat varies considerably. 

 In some forms it is not more than 3-5 grams, with a maximum near 4-7 

 grams and a minimum of 1-6 grams ; others, especially those commonly 

 grown in this country at the present time, have an average weight of about 

 4-5 grams per 100 grains, with a maximum over 5 grams. 



Peters in 1721 states that, in his day, in an ounce of good average wheat 

 there were about 700 grains, the best numbering 600, the smaller samples 

 800 per ounce : these figures correspond with a weight of 4-05 grams per 

 100 grains of average wheat, 4-72 grams for the best, and 3-54 grams for 

 the smaller grains. 



In 1911 I selected ten large and ten small grains from a single ear of 

 several kinds of wheat, the average weight of each large grain being -05 

 gram, that of the small grains less than half or -025 gram. The average 



