CHAPTER II. 



WHICH ENUMERATES THE KINDS AND SPECIFIES THE QUANTITY OF 

 SEEDS FOR SOWING THE IMPERIAL ACRE. 



THE extraordinary and unaccountable disparity in the quantity and proportion of 

 grass seeds sown by different individuals, has often been noticed, as involving a 

 question of considerable pecuniary importance, some of the earlier authors having 

 recommended as much as 20 Ibs. of each of the red, white, and yellow clovers, with half 

 that weight of rib-grass, and 3 bushels of rye-grass per acre ; while others asserted that one- 

 fourth of that quantity was sufficient Nor do present cultivators, in many instances, 

 approach much nearer to a unanimity of practice. This being the case in regard to the 

 commoner grasses and clovers, a still greater uncertainty, as was to be expected, prevailed 

 respecting the proper quantities and proportions of the comparatively recently introduced 

 sorts. These circumstances induced us, in 1834, to lay before the public, through the 

 medium of the " Quarterly Journal of Agriculture," a communication on the kinds and 

 quantities of grass seeds suited to alternate husbandry, permanent pasture, pleasure 

 grounds, &c., a revised copy of which we again published in our " Agriculturist's 

 Manual" in 1836. As several sorts can now be had at reasonable rates, which were then 

 little known, or so scarce and high-priced that their introduction, in proper quantities, 

 would have unwarrantably heightened the price per acre for seeds, we have deemed it 

 proper, at this time, again to submit to the attention of cultivators, the following further 

 improved series of tables, which will be found to combine the results of carefully con- 

 ducted experiments, extending over a period of more than fifty years, with the latest 

 introductions and improvements in practice. 



It was formerly the practice to sow the grasses by measure, and the clovers by 

 -weight ; but of late, the more judicious innovation of sowing the whole by weight 

 is now the universal system ; for although the greater weight in one sort is no criterion 

 of its superiority over less weight in another, yet a greater weight in the same kind 

 always denotes a superior quality. Thus, when seed is light and consequently inferior, the 

 greatest number of seeds is obtained by adhering to a given weight ; and hence there is a 

 chance of nearly an equal number of plants springing up as when the seeds are plump and 

 heavy. But a given weight or measure, applied to the seeds of different grasses, is no 

 indication of the number of plants each sort will produce there being material differ- 

 ences both in the relative bulk and specific gravities of such seeds, as well as a difference 

 in the number of each which germinate in a given quantity. In making out the tables, 

 these variations have, therefore, been carefully studied. 



It must, however, be kept in view, that, even under the most careful management, a 

 greater proportion of the plants produced by the smaller seeds perish at, or immediately 



