44 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



over the field, are beneficial rather than otherwise, inasmuch 

 as they hinder that cementing action which wind and sun 

 (after rain) have upon line mould \ while they act also as 

 shelter-clods for the young plants, and retain moisture near 

 them, while they finally get themselves reduced to fine 

 mould for the roots to penetrate in. The same system ap- 

 plies to every description of heavy land, from the richest 

 to the poorest ; rape, however, being taken in the case of 

 the poorest soils in place of mangold-wurzel. Eape, Mr. 

 Pratt states, surpasses all other fallow crops for heavy land ; 

 for, in addition to its possessing deeply penetrating roots 

 which open up and drain the soil, it comes to such an early 

 maturity that ample time is allowed to have the land pre- 

 pared for the succeeding wheat crop. None need, he says, be 

 deterred from growing rape from fear as to the poverty of the 

 soil. Mr. Pratt has proved, by successful practice in a cold 

 and undrainable clay at a high elevation, and which had been 

 abandoned as worthless, " that when a crop has once been 

 grown, it is much easier to grow a second crop after, for 

 the soil is by these means raised a stage in fertility, the 

 climate is improved, and the temperature of the soil raised 

 by the circulation of the air through it by means of the 

 fibres of the rape plants ; and if further evidence be requir- 

 ed, 35 bushels per acre were produced, where 20 had never 

 been attained before." 



32. The preparation for wheat after seeds, alike with 

 that after roots, extends, in Mr. Pratt's system, over 

 the whole previous year. Indeed, the whole system of 

 cultivating both corn and roots is so entirely bound up, and 

 each part of it is so dependent upon the other, that Mr. 

 Pratt does not know how to separate the two. In Sep- 

 tember, or as soon after harvest as showery weather offers, 



ture, clod-crushers and the like would be superseded. "We have our- 

 selves, for a long time, advocated the notion that the imposing array 

 of implements and machines are, many of them, the mere necessities 

 of a bad system of culture. By bringing in a more philosophical 

 system, as deep culture, we shall reduce, we think, our implements 

 to a minimum, wry tnuch below the present standard. 



