34] A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



be rejected as seed when tainted with it : the before-mentioned 

 method is used as a preventative and cure. 



Mildew is also sometimes very injurious to wheat : the cause is 

 supposed to arise from a too humid atmosphere, and want of sunshine, 

 which are the proximate causes ; and improper tillage, and an 

 abundance of weeds, the predisposing ones. A want of circulation 

 in the air, rendered stagnant by high hedges, may be considered as 

 having a tendency to mildew : hedges should always be plashed 

 against a wheat field. It has been asserted, that minute fungi are 

 the cause of this disease ; but this is beginning at the wrong end : 

 such, if they exist, being the effect of the distemper, and not the 

 cause, their natural growth being upon putrid and decaying 

 substances. 



Rye, for a crop, is not much grown in Staffordshire, but some- 

 times a little may be sown on light land, or on head-lands. No 

 particular preparation is necessary except a fallow manured upon 

 very poor sands ; its produce may be reckoned more than that of 

 wheat on light poor land : in a scarce time of wheat it is a welcome 

 addition to that grain for bread. A valuable use of rye is to form 

 a very early sheep-pasture for ewes and lambs in April ; if a pea, 

 oat, or other stubble, be cleared of its crop in August, and imme- 

 diately ploughed up and sown with rye, and half a bushel of winter 

 vetches per acre to fill up the bottom, it may be half a yard high 

 by the beginning of April following, and form a valuable pasture 

 for ewes and lambs at that pinching season : it may be eaten oft' 

 in good time to work the land thoroughly for turnips. 



Barley is generally sown after turnips on all land where turnips 

 are grown ; on loams it is sown after fallow wheat, the wheat stubble 

 being pin-fallowed in autumn, and well worked in spring ; or 

 after a clean wheat fallow barley has been grown at one plough- 

 ing given in autumn upon the wheat stubble, laid in a proper form 

 for sowing, and drained by proper furrows or gutters, and the barley 

 sown early in the spring following without farther ploughing ; as 

 the amelioration of the ground by winter frosts disposes the ground 

 to work kindly under the harrows without more tillage ; this upon 

 strong loams : clover, and grass-seeds, are always sown with barley 

 as above. 



Drilling-in of barley in rows is practised by some. After drilling, 

 the Rev. Mr. Dickenson defers sowing the grass-seeds for a month, 

 and then hoes them in between the rows of barley ; or has har- 

 rowed-in grass-seeds by a single-horse harrow without injuring 



