210 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



variety sown broadcast in the usual fashion. The broad- 

 casted-planted bore a few long lanky stems and small ears; 

 the dibbled, which, in comparison, might be called a forest 

 of stems like pillars, round, long, and strong, bearing full 

 and large ears ; the first with a small knot of rootlets, the 

 dibbled plant with a huge bunch. The two displayed a 

 fine illustration of "the thin and ill-favoured," and the "full, 

 well-favoured " ears of the corn seen in Pharaoh's dream. 

 But to return to M. Bodin's remarks on this most interest- 

 ing subject. While approving of thin sowing, he does not 

 pretend to state the exact quantities which it is necessary to 

 sow to produce a good crop; nor does he approve of 

 " calculations taking for their base the quantity of grains 

 sown ; " on the contrary, the yield per acre seems to him 

 the most certain. For " in fact," he remarks, " if I sow 

 some grains singly upon a large surface, the plants will 

 develop themselves in an extraordinary manner, and I shall 

 have an enormous produce compared to the quantity of 

 grain sown, but very little compared with the extent of 

 ground. By this means we shall gather thirty or forty to 

 one, being, however, a small return per hectare. It must, 

 therefore, be left for the cultivator to judge the quantity 

 of seed required, taking care not to diminish it beyond 

 what is necessary for the stems to fill the soil." 



14. In examining the practice of farming in many dis- 

 tricts, one is frequently struck with this, that many modes 

 are adopted which seem to have for their aim to overcome 

 an evil which owes its existence to a bad system, so that if 

 the system was remodelled, preventing the recurrence of 

 the evil, the detail in the mode would not be necessitated, 

 seeing that it was alone adopted to overcome the evil. 

 Many examples of this will recur to our readers, and one 

 may be met with in the argument used in favour of thick 

 sowing for some of our cereal crops (as, for instance, that 

 of the barley, which, as is well known to many of our 

 readers, should, according to almost general belief, " lie 

 thick upon the ground") namely, that it keeps down the 

 weeds, which develop most rapidly when the seed is sown 



