66 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



and this may well enough be admitted believe that 

 their theory or mode is well founded upon facts derived 

 from their own experience; nevertheless err in supposing that 

 that experience is applicable to all districts, no matter how 

 widely the difference may be between their peculiarities of 

 soil and climate and those of their own. We repeat a 

 truism when we say that the real progress of agriculture 

 has been much retarded by the persistency with which 

 some have advocated the application of a system to all 

 localities and soils, which has proved of value in their own. 

 Agriculture is specially the art in which repeated trial and 

 experiment is desiderated, and this trial and experiment 

 must be conducted by each one for himself. And as Lord 

 Portman remarks, " a series of experiments for many years 

 in the same district is required to settle the question in 

 such district. In one large district it is found best to sow 2 

 bushels of seed in drills at 9 inches apart, and that is there 

 the general system. In another, more or less seed is re- 

 quired, dependent upon climate, soil, elevation, exposure 

 to wind, game in more or less abundance, birds, insects, 

 &c. No one rule is good for every district." On the same 

 point, Mr. Miles says, " I feel convinced that very many 

 circumstances, to be determined alone by the tenants of the 

 respective farms, must decide the quantity of seed to be 

 sown on the respective localities." Again, Mr. Loft re- 

 marks : " I do not believe that any specified quantity of 

 seed can be laid down as the proper quantity for all de- 

 scription of soil and climate ; practice and experience must 

 alone be the guide ; for although I am willing to admit 

 that wheat tillers well on this soil (Lincolnshire marshes, 

 a loamy clay, or a strong tenacious clay sub-soil), I find, 

 from repeated trials, that it is not safe to sow much less 

 than 8 pecks to the acre, on an average. I now generally 

 begin seed-time with 7 pecks as the minimum, gradually 

 increasing, as the season advances, to 9 pecks per acre." 

 Mr. Eoberts, to whose Essay 011 " The Management of 

 Wheat" we have already referred, states that the quantity of 

 seed varies from 4 to 10 pecks per acre, but that it depends 



