138 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



this because I know that in America, especially in the west, 

 little attention is being paid to harrowing. You consider 

 mostly the job done when the seed has been covered. I 

 had been engaged in farming for nine years in the States, 

 and when in 1859 I tried my hand at it here I at first 

 shook my head at so much harrowing, and thought it an 

 unnecessary expense. I know better now. Thorough har- 

 rowing is the first rule of good tillage ; it is the best re- 

 medy against the wire-worm. But we have introduced 

 better implements of late ; the harrow alone does the work 

 too slow, and not good enough ; we now employ iron roll- 

 ers made in sections similar to Croskill's clod-breaker. 

 We roll the land before and after seeding, and one rolling 

 often has more effect than four rounds by the harrow ; the 

 roller cannot be too heavy; it packs the ground and de- 

 stroys the haunts of the worm. Smooth rollers could not 

 do this ; they merely pulverise and press the surface and 

 are often dangerous to use if the surface is reduced to 

 powder, a rain will bake it into a crust. We want the land 

 packed at the bottom of the furrow open on the surface. 

 I am satisfied that if we could, by steam power, drag a roll- 

 er of 10,000 pounds over the field, this would pay better 

 than to use one of 800 pounds. Smooth rollers, however, 

 I regard with distrust. 



" Sometimes at seeding time the land will be so dry that 

 even by the aid of the roller it cannot be packed. In this 

 case we roll the land after the seed has come up. Oats 

 will bear such an operation very well when the young 

 shoots are 2 to 4 inches long ; winter wheat will bear it 

 in the spring, though not with a smooth roller. It hap- 

 pens, that owing to dry weather or other circumstances the 

 field remains too loose, and the worm begins his work of 

 destruction. In this case we use, with best success, liquid 

 manure. I have drawn such liquid manure upon an oat- 

 field in May, where the wire-worm was committing the 

 greatest depredations. Of course the wheels of the wag- 

 gon injured the appearance of the field, which looked like 

 a garden before ; but they did not injure the crop. The 



