WHEAT. 



WHEAT. 



judgment, as when he adopts an improved 

 mode of feeding. The intelligent farmer of 

 arable land, again, expects a greater crop, the 

 more he has been able to improve the texture 

 of the soil, and the better the nature and state 

 of the manure which it contains. He expects it, 

 because he knows that it depends on the nature 

 of the food given to the plants, and the manner 

 in which they are provided with a constant 

 supply of it. The crop does not, however, de- 

 pend only on this : for as two beasts, fed in 

 exactly the same manner, may not be equally 

 profitable, owing to a difference between them 

 regarding the quantity and quality of the meat 

 they afford, so two different kinds of wheat, 

 though sown on land precisely similar, and in 

 equally good condition, may give unequal re- 

 turns, owing to a difference between them re- 

 garding the quantity and quality of the flour 

 they afford. Hence the importance, too often 

 overlooked by farmers, not only of preparing 

 the land for the crop in a good and sufficient 

 manner, but also of selecting that kind of seed 

 which experience has pointed out as being 

 most valuable and productive. It was with a 

 view, not only of ascertaining the relative 

 value, hardiness, and other properties of seve- 

 ral of the most commonly planted wheats, but 

 also of effecting an improvement in the best 

 of them, that the following experiment was 

 commenced on the 1st of November, 1837. To 

 insure accuracy in the results, it was neces- 

 sary that the seeds of each variety should be 

 planted so as to have them all at equal distances. 

 To effect this, two boards were used, each 6 

 inches wide, 9 feet long, and inch thick. 

 Along the centre of each board was a row of 

 holes, 3 inches apart and 1 inch in diameter. 

 A dibble was made to fit into the holes, having 



a shoulder at the distance of 2 inches from 

 the point. 



When the board was placed on the ground, 

 and the dibble put through each hole in succes- 

 sion, a series of holes was thus made, 2 inches 

 deep, and 3 inches apart from centre to centre. 



After this had been done through the first 

 board, the second, which was touching it, and 

 parallel to it, was served in the same way ; and 

 then the first was taken up, and placed on the 

 other side of the second. By proceeding thus, 

 the whole ground was finished, and then one 

 grain of wheat was dropped into each hole. 

 The rows were thus exactly 6 inches apart, 

 and the grains in the rows were 3 inches from 

 one another. The regularity with which the 

 planting was performed was thus mathemati- 

 cally accurate. The ground planted lies on 

 the lower edge of the great oolite formation, 

 and the soil is a stone brash, about 10 inches 

 in thickness. Crops of potatoes had been 

 taken off it for a succession of eight years; 

 and it had been manured every alternate year 

 with a compost of equal bulks of stable-dung 

 and earth, at the rate of about 20 cubic yards 

 per acre. It was 67 feet in length ; and 3 

 rows of each variety of wheat were planted, 

 except the first and last numbers, of which 

 there were 4 rows. The outer row of each of 

 these, however, was not taken into account, 

 because their roots had a much greater extent 

 of ground for their growth than the others, 

 whose roots touched one another all round. 

 | The end plants of each row were also rejected 

 i for the same reason. Sixty-six feet in length 

 of ground were thus taken up, and three rows 

 of each variety occupied in width 1 foot: the 

 ground occupied by each variety was thus 99 

 , square feet, the 440th part of an acre. 



ffoU. Specimens, in the itraw, of each of the varieties mentioned in the Table, were laid before the Society. 



Athough the tabular form in which this ex- 

 periment is detailed explains itself by the head- 

 ings of each column, yet it is considered ne- 

 .cessary to give a somewhat fuller account of 

 141 



it. The seed from which the first ten varieties 

 were raised was carefully selected from speci- 

 mens of each obtained in the ear. The others 

 were from samples, and here, also, the greatest 



5 B 2 



1121 



