PRACTICAL INFERENCES. 125 



root-growth, he has less control, as he is at the mercy of 

 the seasons. If cold, wet, growing periods are followed hy 

 dull, cloudy, maturing seasons, the crop must be deficient 

 in quantity or quality, or both. The reasons for this 

 deficiency have been repefatedly given. The farmer is not 

 so able as the gardener to overcome these defects, but he 

 is at least able in a measure to evade them by cultivating 

 not only a variety of different crops, but numerous varieties 

 of the same crop, some of which are sure to prove better 

 adapted to sustain themselves under hostile conditions 

 than others. Thus spring wheat, barley, or oats, may be 

 made in a degree to supply the deficiencies of the autumn 

 sown wheat, and tares, beans, peas, carrots, etc., etc., 

 employed to compensate for the failure of other crops. 



Manures By the judicious use of suitable manures at 

 the right time, the farmer is also enabled in some degree 

 to provide for and counteract the effects of unpropitious 

 seasons. Farm-yard manure, for instance, not only in- 

 creases the quantity of corn and of straw, but greatly im- 

 proves the quality of the corn, as measured in pounds per 

 bushel ; and the same holds good of a mixed mineral and 

 nitrogenous manure. 



The time when nitrogenous manures can be most 

 beneficially applied is a matter of great consequence, 

 Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert having proved that the nitrogen 

 carried off the land in the drainage water, is much greater 

 when the manure is applied in the autumn than when used 

 in spring. Another illustration of the use of manures of an 

 opposite character to that just cited, is afforded by the use of 

 common salt (sodium chloride) to check rank growth with 

 its tendency to produce straw rather than corn. 



