DIBBLING. 



DIGITARIA. 



plished. Many ingenious contrivances have 

 from time to time been projected for this pur- 

 pose, and several patents have also been ob- 

 tained, but we are not aware of any that have 

 been successfully and advantageously used. 



DIBBLING is a mode of sowing grain, es- 

 pecially wheat, much practised in some parts 

 of England. Il is found to answer the best 

 on the clover leys of the lighter descriptions 

 of land. It is performed by a man walking 

 backwards with an iron dibble into each hand, 

 with which he makes the holes, on the furrow 

 slice, into which the seed is dropped by child- 

 ren, who place one or two seeds into each hole. 

 By this mode there is a very considerable 

 saving of seed, the quantity employed of wheat 

 being usually from three to five pecks. The 

 wheat plant obtains a more solid soil, and con- 

 siderable additional employment is afforded to 

 the labourer and his family. It is, however, 

 a rather tedious process, and is not adapted to 

 the stiffer descriptions of soil, for on these the 

 dibble forms little cups, in which the rain is 

 apt to lodge to the destruction of the seed 

 grain. A good dibbler with three active at- 

 tendants will plant about half an acre per day. 

 The expense for labour is commonly about 7s. 

 to 9s. per acre for wheat. 



Dibbling was first pretty extensively intro- 

 duced into the east of England about the 

 commencement of the present century. It is 

 spoken of as a novel practice iu 1805, by Mr. 

 Curtis of Lynn (Cam. Board of Jlgr. vol. iv. p. 

 158), and by Mr. Pung of Sudbury, and Mr. 

 Jones of Wellington, in Somersetshire (Ibid. 

 159); they had previously to this time made 

 some rude attempts to employ the dibble near 

 Yarmouth, in Norfolk, for, in 1784, Mr. Oxley 

 describes the farmers of that district dibbling 

 six, seven, and eight pecks per acre, in two 

 rows on each furrow, by three or four droppers 

 to one dibbler, at an expense of half a guinea 

 per acre. (Young's dnnals of jHgr.vol.ui. p. 

 220.) 



In Norfolk, and the neighbouring counties, 

 broad-casting is now almost unknown. Mr. J. 

 Barton, of East Leigh, Hampshire, says, 1836 

 (Ht 'ntf to Schoolmasters, p. 2), I brought a man 

 from Norfolk, twelve months ago, for the pur- 

 pose of instructing, my labourers in dibbling, 

 and he brought with him the implements, 

 which are made in the following manner. The 

 body of the dibble is a core of hard steel, 

 round which is soft iron, so as always to wear 

 itself sharp ; at the upper end is a handle. 



The instrument is three feet long, all iron 

 excepting the handle; it weighs six pounds; a 

 man walks with one in each hand backwards, 

 and makes from 3000 to 3050 holes in a day, 

 giving a slight twist with the wrist at the mo- 

 ment of plunging the iron into the ground, 

 which makes a hole that does not again fill 

 up by the crumbling in of the earth. The 

 ground should be even, then the rows are 

 dibbled, the holes four inches apart, so that 

 four of them can be covered at once by the 

 foot ; the rows are about four and a half inches 

 apart ; the holes are filled by a rake, or har- 

 row with a few bushes woven into it. I pay 

 nine shillings per acre of 160 rods for the 

 work, out of which the dibbler pays the child- 



ren who drop the wheat; three grains should 

 be dibbled in each hole, which will take about 

 one bushel and a half per acre. The Norfolk 

 farmers say the yield by dibbling exceeds that 

 by broad-casting by four bushels per acre. 



Dibbling costs in Hertfordshire only 6s., and 

 in Norfolk and Suffolk from 7s. to 10s. per 

 acre, according to the distance of the holes, 

 but where they are thickest, and three or four 

 grains placed in each hole, it does not use 

 more than two bushels of seed per acre. 



A writer in the Mark Lane Express says, 

 drilling wheat is the most generally practised 

 in the eastern part of the county of Suffolk, 

 and dibbling wheat has been upon the decline 

 for the last twenty years ; I believe, because it 

 is more trouble to attend to dibblers than to 

 drilling; but I was in the habit of dibbling 

 wheat when I took business for myself in 1807, 

 and I continue the practice to the present day, 

 for the following reasons: 1st, It encourages 

 the poor man and his family, by increasing his 

 wages, and gives employment to his children 

 which they would not have if wheat was 

 drilled. 2dly, It shows the children, when 

 young, that Providence has ordained them to 

 get their bread by the sweat of their brow; 

 and I grow upon the four-course shift 100 acres 

 of wheat every year. For wheat I pay for 

 dibbling 7s. per acre, which is done by seven 

 men that have the largest families : those men 

 earn 51. each in five weeks, generally, but if 

 the weather be fine in less time. Another and 

 3d reason why I prefer dibbling is, that the 

 men and children tread the land with their 

 feet, which makes the land firmer and better 

 for the crop. 4thlv, It is better to clean the 

 land, because you can only hoe between the 

 rows of the drilled wheat, when you can hoe 

 all round the dibbled plant. 5thly, The seed 

 goes farther into the ground from dibbling than 

 drilling, the small end piercing deeper than it 

 appears, while the drill appears deeper than it 

 really is, the coulter of the drill raising mould 

 on each side, so that when harrowed the corn 

 is not so deep as when dibbled. Gthly, There 

 is always more under-corn, that is, small ears, 

 from the drill than from the dibble, and dib- 

 bling takes less seed. Six pecks is about the 

 quantity of seed it takes, unless it be very 

 early in the season. I am a great advocate for 

 dibbling, for the above reasons ; I have tried 

 both on the same field, and generally found the 

 dibbled wheat the most productive; and it 

 stands up better against the wind and rain: 



Thus dibbling saves half the 3 bushels usually 

 brnad-rast -------- 1$ 



And the gain in the crop being - - - - 4 



Makes Si 



Worth at 80s. per quarter ----- 55*. 

 And after paying per acre for dibbling - - - Is. 



Leaves, per acre 



- 48 



And even at 5s. gives a gain over broad-cast wheat of 

 upwards of 20. 



DICK, DIKE, or DYKE. A provincial word 

 applied to the mound or back of a ditch, and 

 dick-hole is the excavation or ditch itself. In 

 Scotland it means a stone wall. See DITCH. 



DIGGING. See SPADB HUSBANDRY. 



DIGITARIA SANGUINALIS. PI. 7,/. Slen- 



407 



