58 CULTURE OF FAEM CROPS. 



is utterly unfit for sowing is the best for planting, accord- 

 ing to the well-known proverbial maxim, ' Set wet, and 

 sow dry.' Some persons, not well acquainted with country 

 affairs, might suppose the process to be much more tedious 

 and more costly than it is. They will, perhaps, be sur- 

 prised to hear of the payment made by many nursery gar- 

 deners in England to the women and children employed 

 in transplanting small forest trees (about a finger long) 

 from the seed-bed. They pay 2d. a thousand; and many 

 women and children are glad to earn in this way from 4d. 

 to 6d. a-day. It is even found to answer in some parts of 

 England to sow wheat in the way that is called ' setting ' 

 or ' dibbling,' dropping the grains by hand into holes made 

 for the purpose, as, indeed, is always done with beans. It 

 would not take much more time and labour to lay the little 

 off-sets of the wheat in a shallow furrow, and then slightly 

 cover them over. And, as some set-oif against the expense 

 of labour, is to be reckoned the saving of the seed wheat. 

 But, however, the alternative is not between sowing or 

 planting a field of wheat (the former being in such a season 

 as this impossible), but between the planting and the leav- 

 ing of the field absolutely waste for a whole season." 



41. There is tl nothing new under the sun," and it holds 

 good of this so-called " new " system of transplanting wheat, 

 for perhaps the most complete record of what has been done 

 in transplanting of wheat is to be met with in papers pub- 

 lished eighty years ago in the Transactions of the Bath and 

 "West of England Society, a glance at the leading features of 

 which will here be interesting. Thus, a Mr. Bogle the 

 name need not be taken as ominous by our Scottish readers 

 states that he has known wheat transplanted in September, 

 October, November, February, March, April, and even as 

 late as the middle of May, all of which have answered 

 well. And the result of what he observed in connection 

 with the subject led him to believe that wheat is not ail 

 annual but a perennial, provided it is eaten down by sheep 

 or cut repeatedly by the scythe or the sickle, so as to prevent 

 the plants coming to ear. (For a very suggestive note on this 



