536 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



also injurious. All this may appear dogmatic, 

 and to earnest advocates of thin seeding un- 

 reasonable ; we can only say that for the last 

 seven years we have sown from 60 to 120 

 acres of wheat per annum, with quantities 

 varying from 27 lbs. of seed up to 10 pecks 

 per acre, and our conclusions are, we think, 

 rightly deducible from our experience. 



There is no better illustration of the way 

 in which this subject has been discussed than 

 the reception experienced by " More Facts " 

 in connection with it lately published in a 

 tabular form by Mr. Baker, of Writtle, in the 

 Mark-Lane Express. Two gentlemen no- 

 ticed them on the following week. The one 

 says : " I like Mr. Baker's quiet way of 

 stating a fact ; it is better than declamation ;" 

 and he very justly adds : " I hope, if he has 

 any facts in favor of thin seeding, he will 

 communicate them, and also the results of 

 any of his own experiments, which I presume 

 he has tried. I shall consider it my duty to 

 publish all the facts I am cognizant of, either 

 for or against, and I hope other agricultuiists 

 will do the same. We ought not to appear 

 as mere advocates of a particular .system, but 

 as judges of facts sought for or tried by our- 

 selves." 



He then follows with a number of facts 

 within his own knowledge as to the practice 

 of farmers in his neighborhood, which we 

 shall publish as so much clear addition to the 

 histoiy of the subject : 



" Last year, Mr. Walker, of Petistree, Suf- 

 folk, a successful practical famier, tried thin 

 seeding, in consequence of my remarks at a 

 previous meeting. In the middle of a fifteen- 

 acre field he altered the drill-wheel, and de- 

 posited 1 bushel of seed on 1 acre, the rest 

 of the field having his usual quantity, 2 bu.sh- 

 els ; it was sown in October. The thin- 

 sown acre produced 7 bushels more per acre 

 than the thicker sown acre, besides saving 

 the bushel of seed. In another field, drilled 

 in November, (a month later,) he had no in- 

 crease from thin sowing, but saved his bushel 

 of seed per acre, and grew a greater wkight 

 of straw, which confirms my own experi- 

 ments, that we get more weigJtt of straw from 

 thin sowing than from thick. My own ex- 

 periments for three years have been invari- 

 ably in favor of 1 bushel per acre over 2 

 bushels — the saving being often the rent of 

 the land. I have now 50 acres drilled with 

 1 bushel per acre, and 32 acres sown later 

 with .5.;^ pecks. Mr. W. Hutley has, at Wig- 

 borough, 180 acres of wheat drilled with 5 

 pecks per acre. Mr. .Tames Wood, of Gold- 

 hanger, grew as much from 1 bushel as 

 from 2." 



The other gentleman finds in Mr. Baker's 

 " facts," arguments than which " nothing 

 could have been more convincing in favor of 

 thin sowing ;" he adds no new facts himself, 

 and welcomes these only because in his eyes 

 they are in favor of what he considers a bet- 

 ter system of Agriculture. Now, what we 

 have all along contended for is that facts are 

 welcome, whatever the tale they tell. What 

 (1016) 



we want is truth, not evidence in favor of 

 any particular creed. We ough gladly to 

 receive evidence of all sorts from trustworthy 

 witnesses, and then we should admit its ob- 

 vious testimony. But how does the corre- 

 spondent of the Mark-Lane Express approach 

 Mr. Baker's facts ? By a singiilar and amusing 

 ingenuity, he grounds his conclusions on a 

 comparison of the best account of the thiu 

 seeding with the worst of the thick, and is si- 

 lent regarding all the others on the scale be- 

 tween. It is as if, of all the fields on a farm, 

 of various fertility, each of which was half 

 thick sown and half thin, he had taken the 

 characteristic acreable produce of the former 

 from the worst, and that of the latter from 

 the best of the series. 



But he illustrates his point in another way. 

 He shows by the plainest arithmetic that the 

 produce of the thin sown was a greater mul- 

 tiple of its seed than that of the thick sown. 

 This he appears to think is a great point. 

 Now, so far from this, we submit that, ex- 

 cepting m a country where land is of no 

 value, the inference he draws is absolutely 

 worthless. It is the produce per acre, not 

 per bushel of seed, that the fanner looks to. 

 We have grown 30 bushels per acre from 1^ 

 pecks, and 50 bushels per acre from 8 pecks 

 of seed ; in the fonner case we obtained 80, 

 and in the latter only 25 fold the seed, but 

 on which had we the most reason for self- 

 gratulation ? 



\Ve subjoin the whole letter : 



" As every additional fact in favor of a bet- 

 ter system of Agriculture must be interest- 

 ing to a thinking public, will you allow me 

 pubhcly to thank Mr. Baker for his " More 

 Facts on Thin Sowing," which y iu published 

 in your Express of December 31. An arti- 

 cle so much in favor of thin sowing from the 

 captain of the influential troop of agricul- 

 tural protectionists must have great weight 

 with the agriculturists of Essex, and perhaps 

 so with all England. Mr. Baker's facts are 

 as follows : 



5 jt.'cka sown produced ^ bushels and 3^ pecks. 



7 pecks sown produced 5 bushels and 2 pecks, 



6 pecks sown produced 7 bushel". And 



8 pecks produced 9 bushels and 2 pecks. 

 That is to say— 



5 pecks produced Ifi^Vo ptcks, or 1 peck produced 3 MO fold. " 



7 pecks produced '22 ' peck.-, <.r 1 peck produced 3 1-7 fold. I 

 5 pecks produced 28 pecks, or 1 peck produced 5 3-5 fold. 



8 pecks produced 38 pecks, or 1 peck produced 4 b-8 fold. ' 



" By the above analysis it is clearly shown 

 that the experiments do furnish more facts 

 on thin sowing, since one of the smallest 

 quantities of seed produced the largest in- 

 crease of crop ; the 5 pecks produced 28 

 pecks, while 7 pecks produced only 22 pecks. 

 Nothing, therefore, could have been more 

 convincing in favor of thin sowing, or I would 

 show Mr. Baker where by a little more than 

 half 5 pecks of seed 75-fold was produced, 

 and where only a little more than 5 pecks of 

 seed produced a crop of nearly 68 bushels an 

 acre. But the above ' More Facts on Thin 

 Sowing ' are enough, and I thank Mr. Baker 

 for publishing them." 



We have not given the names of the wri- 

 ters of these letters (we cannot suppose that 



