THICK AND THIN SOWING OF BARLEY. 209 



by still farther increasing the quantity of seed, the produce 

 is still poorer. By the invariable law of plant growth, all 

 the plants will give some grain; but the question arises, 

 "Will the stems form themselves, if, by thick sowing to 

 excess, they grow up thicker and poorer 1 Doubtless, the 

 more the stems are numerous, the poorer in formation will 

 they be, for we put fifty in a space adapted only, perhaps, 

 to grow ten, and yet we expect a good result from such a 

 mode ; certainly an expectation as likely to be realized, as 

 he who, putting three times more stock upon poor pasture 

 than he would upon good pasture, fancies he will obtain a 

 better result. The more we encroach upon the available 

 resources of the soil, by putting the plants living upon it 

 to an extreme in number, the more do we reduce the 

 quantity of the produce : if we sow fifty where we should 

 only have ten, it is obvious enough that the food fit for 

 the full development of ten only must be divided among 

 fifty, to the manifest disadvantage of every individual one 

 of the fifty. . But not only is the supply of food to each 

 plant lessened in proportion to the excess of plants partak- 

 ing of it, or withdrawing it from the soil, but another and 

 a very serious disadvantage arises namely, the roots get 

 crowded and entangled together, and the " tillering," which 

 is so essential to the healthy development of each plant, 

 cannot be secured. It is difficult to say what is the mini- 

 mum of earth or root space required by each plant, but, 

 judging from the extraordinary extent to which this de- 

 velopment takes place where the plant is allowed a large 

 space of soil to grow in, we have no hesitation in saying 

 that, as a rule, no plant receives, in practice, its proper 

 allowance of feeding and growing ground. We remember 

 very well the result of one out of many experiments we 

 instituted on the modes of sowing thickly and thinly, 

 having reference to the extent of underground (root) de- 

 velopment and upper growth (stems and ears), how struck 

 we were by the extraordinary mass of rootlets, and the fine 

 display of stems and ears of a cereal plant dibbled (one of 

 many sown at 12 -inch intervals), and another of the same 



