1870. 



NEW ENGLA^N^D F.lRilER. 



103 



For the Xeiv England Farmer. 

 WHEAT CULTUKE IN" ENGLAND. 



Dibbling— Drilling — Pressing — Roiling — Treading — 

 Depth of P.ougbing— Amount of Seed per Acre— Ro- 

 tation of CropE — Seeding down Clay Land — Value of 

 Straw, Rocts, &c. — Winter Management of Stock 

 and Manure. 



In a previous article on the cultivation of 

 •wheat, I spoke of "pressing after the drill." 

 I did not mean simply pressing with an ordi- 

 nary roller, but by the use of an implement 

 known in England as the Presser-roUer. As 

 this may be something new to most of the 

 readers of the New England Farmer, I 

 send you a drawing of a part of the machine 

 which will perhaps sufficiently illustrate the 

 operation. 



,^"-^ 



The cut presents a view of two pressing 

 wheels detached from the carriage and shafts, 

 in which A A is the axle, BB are the two press- 

 ing wheels as they appear edgeways, their di- 

 ameter being about two feet six inches, weigh- 

 ing some 200 pounds each. The sole of the 

 wheel is about two inches wide. The press- 

 ing wheels are held at the required distance 

 by the square collars CCG ; dd represents a 

 tranverse section of the ground undergoing 

 the pressing process ; the shaded part of the 

 section exhibits the furrows of a soft loose 

 soil, and the dotted lines EF, EF, that of the 

 newly ploughed land undergoing the opera- 

 tion of consolidation. T'jc ruts left by the 

 presser for the seed, is shcvn at the right, and 

 are three inches deep by iwo wide at bottom. 

 The presser follows two ploughs and the wheels 

 run in the seams of the furrows. The land at 

 the left, at d, is unploughed, and on this runs 

 a light wheel which supports the frame or car- 

 riage of the machine. The shafts by which it 

 is drawn are also placed on the left side of the 

 frame, so that the horse walks on the un- 

 ploughed land. Sometimes, however, four or 

 six press wheels are used, or as many as there 

 are drills in the machine which deposits the 

 grain. In which case the side wheel that runs 

 on the unploughed land is dispensed with. 



This Diode of cultivation is applicable only 

 to the di-ill system, and is adopted only in 

 cases where the soil is too loose and friable 

 for the healthy and continued growth of the ' 



wheat plant, as in case of a heavy clover lea, 

 &G. I once worked for a farmer on the York- 

 shire wolds where the soil is very shallow ; the 

 solid chalk rock lying only sixteen to twenty 

 inches below the surface. On this land, with 

 ordinary cultivation, the wheat suffered greatly 

 by being forced out of the ground by the 

 frosts of winter. To remedy this my em- 

 ployer set to work and got eight cast iron 

 wheels made, and gauged them to correspond 

 exactly with the distance of the coulters of 

 his drills. Including the frame, this presser- 

 roUer weighed nearly a ton, but to make it 

 still heavier, he put two four-bushel bags of 

 wheat on to it. The presser was drawn by two 

 horses and followed in the track of the' seed 

 drill, and pressed in the wheat very firmly. 

 The result was, at the following harvest, some 

 of the best wheat crops that were grown in 

 that neighborhood, for a circle of many miles. 



Before the introduction of machines for 

 drilling in the wheat, dibbling was extensively 

 practiced. By the use of this implement a 

 firm seed-bed for the wheat was secured, sim- 

 ilar to that obtained by the Presser-roller. The 

 dibble is an instrument three feet long, all 

 iron, excepting the handle, and weighs six 

 pounds. The dibbler walks backwards with a 

 dibble in each hand, giving a slight twist with 

 the wrist at the moment of plunging the iron 

 into the ground, which makes a hole that does 

 not again fill up by the crumbling in of the 

 earth. The holes were made four inches 

 apart, and the rows about four and a half 

 inches. The seed is dropped into the holes 

 by children who place one, two, or three 

 seeds into each hole. The holes are filled by 

 a rake or a harrow with a few bushes woven 

 into it. A good dibbler with three active at- 

 tendants will plant about half an acre a day. 

 This tedious process has been mostly super- 

 seded by the modern drill, with which the de- 

 sired solidity of the soil is secured by the use 

 of the ordinary land roller. 



As another illustration of the benefits of 

 consolidating the soil of wheat fields, I will 

 mention an incident that I remember. A field 

 had been seeded to wheat and finished off in 

 the nicest English style. A party of sports- 

 men with a pack of fifty-two hounds rode over 

 this field back and forth, to head off the foxes 

 which the dogs were chasing in an adjacent 

 thicket of broom and winns, pressing the 

 ground quite solid in places. Without guess- 

 ing what effect such treatment of his wheat 

 field would have on a Yankee farmer, I may 

 say that it provoked the English owner to 

 rougher words than I care to repeat. At har- 

 vest, however, the yield on the most closely 

 trodden part of the field proved to be the best 

 and the heaviest. 



I greatly prefer drilling to broadcast sow- 

 ing. But where the land is in such a condition 

 that we cannot use the drill-machine, we must 

 resort to broadcast sowing. Among the dis- 

 advantages of broadcast sowing are the differ- 



