168 SKETCHES OP RURAL AFFAIRS. 



brightness." At the present time the culture of wheat 

 is very extensive, reaching throughout nearly all the 

 temperate climates of the earth, and also to many of the 

 hotter regions. In some places this crop has been culti- 

 vated as high as two thousand feet above the level of 

 the sea, but in our own country it has seldom been 

 grown at a greater elevation than six hundred feet. 

 Throughout this country, and the whole of northern 

 Europe, the most important kind of wheat is that 

 known as Winter or Lammas wheat. The common 

 varieties of this wheat are distinguished by the colour 

 of the outer covering of the grain, which, according as 

 it is darker or lighter, gives the name of " red wheat," 

 or " white wheat," to the particular variety. Red 

 wheat, including many shades of brown, is considered 

 more hardy than white, and better suited for bleak and 

 exposed districts, but it is in general less productive. 

 A number of local names are given to different varieties 

 of wheat, such as " Golden Drop," " Hickling's Prolific," 

 " White Downy," " Hunter's White," &c. ; and it is for 

 the cultivator himself to judge which kind of wheat is 

 most suitable to the situation and soil it is intended for. 

 Winter wheat is generally sown in Autumn, but is 

 sometimes called spring wheat, from being sown at that 

 season. It is, indeed, common to class as spring wheat 

 every kind of winter wheat which will ripen when 

 sown after turnips in February. There is, however, a 

 distinct species of real spring or summer wheat, much 

 used in warm countries, but little known in our own. 

 It is occasionally used to repair the ravages of the wire- 

 worm, being sown in April or May, in the bare spots 

 caused by the worm in the winter crop. It is generally 

 ripe as soon as the rest, and can be thrashed and sold 

 with it ; but it is inferior both in quality and produc- 

 tiveness to winter wheat. Thus it appears that the 

 various sorts of spring wheat in common use, do not 

 form a distinct species from Winter or Lammas wheat, 

 but have merely acquired a somewhat different habit, 



