42 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



from our desire to insure stability of position of the plant 

 during winter. This necessity does not exist so markedly 

 in spring ; the preparation of the land in this season for 

 the wheat crop, is therefore much less troublesome and 

 costly than that of autumn. When the roots of the pre- 

 ceding green crops have been removed from or consumed 

 upon the land, it is ploughed once, and the seed is sown as 

 soon as a favourable opportunity presents itself, so as to 

 have the soil in good dry working order. A second plough- 

 ing, for the reasons already stated, is seldom given. Spring- 

 wheat should be sown early; none, excepting theApril-wheat, 

 should be sown later than February in the eastern, and 

 March in the western districts of England. We have thus 

 given a rapid resum of Professor Tanner's paper, so far as 

 it relates to the wheat crop. We now, in concluding this 

 chapter, do the same office for a prize paper by Mr. J. P. 

 Pratt, in the Journal of the Bath and West of England 

 Society, with a view to draw more special attention to the 

 writer's system of managing very heavy clay lands, usually 

 placed under the summer fallow system. 



30. The ordinary system pursued by occupiers of poor 

 clay lands, in which the working of the summer fallow is 

 generally deferred till May, when the first ploughing is then 

 given, admits, as Mr. Pratt points out, " of no improvement 

 of the land for wheat, or indeed for any other crop ; for 

 naturally the same results will follow, year after year, while 

 if possible, its stubborn and adhesive texture is increased 

 during the two years' rest, during which the land is gene- 

 rally under grass as it is called (and truly so, for it produces 

 nothing), by the winter rain constantly hammering on and 

 hardening its surface, shutting up every aperture from the 

 beneficial effects of frost and sunshine, thus defeating the 

 very work of amelioration which nature has provided." 

 Mr. Pratt then details his mode of working a system of fol- 

 lowing from autumn through winter, on all the heavy lands 

 of his occupation, and of which we now offer an epitome. 



31. On the best description of land, Mr. Pratt grows 

 mangold-wurzel and the artificial grasses, alternately, with 



