98 CULTIVATION OF PLANTS. 



vernal food; so that if the roots and top be cut off, and the bulb be planted in 

 a genial soil, the plant will grow. 



Notwithstanding the arguments which have been urged in favour of sowing 

 wheat late, it must be conceded that, when early sown and our fields are cul- 

 tivated in the usual manner, it produces the largest crop, if it survive the cold 

 season. Whether such improvements may not be made, as to combine the 

 benefits of a sure and large crop, is a question still open to investigation; the 

 probability is, that both advantages may be secured, by a more correct know- 

 ledge of the proper time to sow, and of the best methods of culture. 



In the first volume of the Transactions of the Society for the Promotion of 

 Agriculture, Arts and Manufactures, instituted in the state of New York, it is 

 stated that, in Huntington, Suffolk county, fifty-two bushels of wheat had been 

 raised by manure on an acre of land; and Mr. Downs is said to have raised on 

 a poor gravelly dry soil, by the use of fish as a manure, at the rate of 128 

 bushels of rye an acre. In this case, the rye would doubtless have lodged and 

 been of little value, were it not that it was twice eaten off by his neighbours' 

 sheep which broke into the lot; once when the rye was nine" inches high, and 

 again when it was about six inches high. 



The production of so large a crop of wheat and of rye must have proceeded 

 from causes which are steady and uniform in their operation, and if all the 

 circumstances which had concurred to produce them, had been distinguished 

 and noted down, similar crops might have been again raised. Some things 

 which occurred during the cultivation of this rye crop, may be ascribed to ac- 

 cident or chance, so far as Mr. Downs' sagacity was concerned, but the causes 

 which proxiraately occasioned the crop, did not work by accident or by chance, 

 but agreeably to laws or rules from which they never deviate. This uni- 

 formity of operation lays the foundation for making future discoveries, and 

 brings within the grasp of our faculties the knowledge of increasing our crops 

 by methods the least laborious and expensive. 



The period may arrive when the farmer shall pursue his methods of cul- 

 ture with an anticipation of the consequences which will result, analogous to 

 that of the mechanician in the construction of a machine, and when, by direct 

 means, he shall procure greater crops than ever were obtained by mere em- 

 pirical trials. 



Time was when the greatest philosophers taught the doctrine, that all things 

 pertaining to the surface of the earth were too irregular and too much under 

 the governance of chance, to admit of scientific inquiry; this error has, within 

 the two last centuries, been dispelled. But a similar error, in regard to rural 

 affairs, is embraced by almost all our practical farmers, and the task of cor- 

 recting and exposing it. is devolved, it would seem, upon the unaided efforts 

 of a few individuals. Here then is the difficulty. 



2. RYE. 



Of the genus SECALE. There is but one cultivated species. 



ACCORDING to some, Rye is a native of the Island of Crete, 

 but it is very doubtful whether any country can be now ascer- 

 tained to be its native soil. It has been cultivated from time 

 immemorial, and is considered as coming nearer in its proper- 

 ties to wheat than any other grain. London. 



It is more extensively grown than wheat on most parts of 

 the continent of Europe, being a more certain crop, and one 

 which requires much less culture and manure. It is the bread 

 corn of Germany and Russia, Switzerland and Poland, and 



