AND RURAL ECONOMIST. 119 



quarts of slacked lime and ono quart of plaster to the 

 bushel, and if too dry sprinkle on water, and continue to 

 stir it until all is covered with the lime and plaster. I-^ this 

 way you may proceed until you have prepared your whole 

 seed. Let it remain in a heap one day, then spread it and 

 move it daily, until it becomes perfectly dry ; it is then fit to 

 sow, and you may sow it if the land should happen to be 

 quite wet.' 



We shall now speak of the liability of wheat to become 

 winter-killed. The author of Letters of Agricola states, as 

 an objection to the cultivation of wheat in Nova Scotia, 'its 

 liability to be thrown out in the spring, and thus subjeciing 

 the farmer to serious inconveniences, and often disappoint- 

 ment of a crop. Grasses are not exempt from the same 

 hazard ; and the hopes of the year are thus blasied by a 

 cau.se which, in many cases, will admit of remedy, in all, of 

 alleviation. I am not sure but sowing the wdieat seed under 

 furrow, at least four or five inches deep, in September, in 

 order that i' may extend its roots and take a firm hold of the 

 soil before the approach of winter, and rolling it in the 

 spring with the box heavily loaded, would obviate the evils 

 of our climate, and enable us to cultivate that grain accord- 

 ing to the improved modes of England. It ought to be re- 

 collected that even there, about sixty years ago, winter wheat 

 was not of general cultivation, and the heaving of the soil 

 was accounted a powerful obstacle to its success. In Scot- 

 land, too, during the same period, spring wheat almost uni- 

 versally prevailed; and her northern and bleak position was 

 thought to be incapable of any change to the better, and ut- 

 terly unfriendly to autumnal semination. The zeal and indus- 

 try of British farmers, combined with their skill, have bafiled 

 all these gloomy predictions, and taught us at once to copy 

 the example of our sires, and not to despair in the race of 

 improvement.' 



A method, according to the same author, made use of in 

 Norfolk, England, to guard wheat against the changes and 

 inclemency of winter and spring, is to adopt the following 

 rotation : ' After a turnip crop, they sow barley the second 

 year with clover seeds ; the third year they cut hay, and 

 plough down the ley, and sow their winter wheat on the 

 matted sod. The roots of the grass bind the soil, and pre- 

 vent it from heaving, which is much akin to the same effect 

 produced by the tangled and bound surface of our new and 

 cleared lands.' This fact may suggest another inducement 



