128 PRIZE ESSAY : 



4. Fife wheat (see paragraph 161, No. 4.) 



5. Pipers' thick set wheat is said to be the shortest and stiffest 

 strawed wheat in cultivation. (New edi. of Ency. Brit., 1853.) 

 It is a yellow grained, rather coarse variety, and has been intro- 

 duced into Scotland under the name of protection wheat. 



229. A valuable instance of good husbandry in checking the 

 progress of rust, is related by Mr. Curtis McFarland, under date, 

 Toronto, 1 849, and will be found in the Canadian Agriculturist 

 for March, 1849. No doubt the application of lime greatly im- 

 proved the quality of the straw, and forwarded the ripening of 

 the crop. The surface draining alluded to is also an artifice ad- 

 mirably adapted, as every good farmer knows, to increase the 

 returns, improve the sample, hasten the maturity, and in many 

 other ways benefit the crop. 



"In the spring of 1845, being my first year in Canada, I went 

 on a rented farm, in the Township of Whitchurch, on which 

 there were three acres of fall wheat, which when harvest came 

 I found to be very much injured by the rust. The wheat grew 

 on dry ground, and had been early sown, and otherwise well 

 laboured. It was fallow the first time broken up, and had re- 

 ceived a dressing of farm -yard manure. 



To endeavour to prevent this disease in my wheat crop the 

 ensuing season, and to do so with as little outlay of money as 

 possible, I took occasion every time I went to Toronto with the 

 waggon, to bring back a load of lime from the gas works ; this I 

 got at about half the price I would have paid for it at the lime 

 kilns. I kept it dry until I was going to use it, and applied 

 about forty bushels to the acre on the fallow, harrowing it in 

 with the seed. 



Wherever I applied the lime, there was no rust in harvest, but 

 where it was omitted there was very considerable of it. 



The lime cost 6d. per bushel, thus the expense was only &\ 



