38—1846.] THE 
AG 
RICULTURAL GAZETTE. 
637 
nued rains. The dibble may then be employed to great 
advantage—the rake following at the cost of about 
25. 6d. per acre, The grain is thus planted and the 
field becomes green belore the frosts have arrived. 
Land that is too wet to drillin a late wet season, fre- 
quently remains so, and the opportunity to plant it is 
lost, but dibbling in cases just alluded to may be done 
almost with impunity. This remark does not apply to 
soils so adhesive as to hold water in the cup that 
the dibbler makes, where such is the case the grain 
will surely perish. I speak of porous soils, which, 
though wet from recent rains, the water escapes from 
rapidly, leaving the seed to germinate, grow, and 
flourish. I dibbled upwards of 35 acres last autumn, 
upon lands which I could not drill, from the 8th to the 
22d of November. The preceding crops were Beans, 
Peas, Mangold Wurzel, and Potatoes. Five pecks of 
"Wheat of good quality, but of small size were used per 
aere. It was raked in, and a mild season following, it 
quickly vegetated, and did not lose plant. Those parts 
of the fields which were planted thickest were decidedly 
the most productive both of straw and grain. I dibbled 
60 acres of Wheat in the autumn of 1842. The former 
part of the season was too dry, and the latter part too 
wet. Fields that were in the desired condition to deposit 
the seed became too dry, or too wet, before they could 
be finished. The process was too slow. Even on a 
lightish hazel mould, hasty and heavy rains following 
the dibble before it was possible to harrow, the seed 
perished in the cups, toa great extent. This dibbling was 
done by hand dibblers upon leys. No attempt was 
made to rake the ground, on account of the general 
solidity of the furrow. When the ground was too dry, 
during some part of the season, the holes were too 
shallow in the hard surface to seeure the seed. The 
thickest parts of the field were best. Dibbling, then, 
on a large scale, I think, is dangerous in wet and 
variable seasons. Another objection arises from the 
little dependance to be placed on the persons employed 
—particularly the children. Some exceptions are to be 
found, but there is much hazard where so much is at 
stake. I have never dibbled Barley ; but Oats, Beans, 
and Peas, I have severally tried, with various success. 
In certain cireumstances—where the Poppy is appre- 
hended in Wheat, or where the lands are peculiar, so 
that the drill cannot be introduced and the horse cannot 
step—this process may be employed to advantage. -If 
it ever becomes general, I think it must be done by 
machine. This isthe only means by which the seed can 
be deposited in the soil when it is fit to receiveit. The 
quantity of seed required varies exceedingly as before no- 
ticed. Broadcast is subject to most waste, and therefore 
requires most seed. There is little waste to either of the 
other processes. The drilled acre, I think, wants 
Somewhat more seed than the dibbled, and principally 
On account of the proximity of the seed of the latter, 
which nurses and protects and forwards it. No pre- 
scribed quantity of any of the varieties of grain can be 
recommended as applicable to all lands on all occasions. 
That amount which in the majority of years succeed 
best should be adopted. Notice must always be taken 
of the bulk and quality of the grain. If small, but per- 
fect, less will suffice. If cold and defective, more is of 
course required, 12 pecks per aere of good Wheat in 
some cases is not too much, while 5 pecks per acre in 
others is not too little. If all the seed deposited in the 
earth grew and lived, about an equal quantity would be 
required on all lands of equal quality and condition, 
whatever the previous preparation might be, whether 
certain chalk leys which require the most, or fallows 
which demand about the least. he improvement 
which has obtained in securing grain within the last 20 
years, by which we gain a sounder and better seed, 
renders a somewhat smaller quantity necessary for 
planting. Further than this, any attempt to economise 
the amount of seed, is not by farmers generally con- 
sidered desirable. Different opinions prevail Lord 
"Western advocates thiek sowing ; on the presumption 
that no tillering should be depénded upon. He pur- 
sued the principle and as he believed proved it by many 
successful experiments, In the present day there is à 
disposition very prevalent for thin sowing, and an excess 
of tillering. Reports are current of the efficacy of the 
modern plan. 1 fear we do not hear the whole truth, 
We are informed of success and not of defeat. I have 
the best authority for saying that, on a farm in the 
eastern part of Surrey, reputed for thin sowing, many 
aeres of corn are ploughed up from time to time, of 
which the public is left in ignorance. It is related that 
a farm in Yorkshire remained for a time untenanted, a 
prejudice against it having obtained, one of the grounds 
for which was that the Oats would not ripen. A tenant 
was at length found, who at once corrected the evil, by 
sowing an additional quantity of 2 bushels per acre. 
Opinions will be unanimous as to the fact that thick 
crops of straw ripen earlier and better, and produce a 
grain superior in quality to thin ones, the latter of which 
sometimes do not ripen at all. The atmosphere appears 
to act too powerfully upon isolated straws, and upon the 
current of juices forced into the stalk. I do not assume 
that thin planting must necessarily produce thin straw 
crops, but it does not so certainly secure a crop of the 
desired thickness. If we sometimes find our crops un- 
duly thick, the loss we sustain is much less, upon the 
whole, than in the ease of a crop unduly thin, The first 
destroys the weeds and ripens well, the last encourages 
them, and blights or mildews. Every farmer should 
Strive to be a judge of the quantity of seed necessary for 
ae Some districts require more seed than others; 
e will vary his quantity, and, also his distances between 
the rows, according to his land, the “poor soil requiring | 
closer rows than the rich. He will measure his quan- | 
tity by his preparation for it ; whether succeeding ley, | his 
or fallow, or Peas ; the last of which is injured by much | 
| 
seed. The seed of the last few years has been superior, 
and should not be allowed to determine the quantity in 
adverse years. A succession of wet harvests would con- 
vince us that & more liberal quantity would be required 
than we think necessary at present." 
Mebviews. 
The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Socie'y of 
England, Vol. VIL. Part 1. London: John 
Murray, Albemarle-street. 
Tuns is unquestionably one of the best Numbers which 
has appeared. Certainly, it is most satisfactory, not 
only to readers of agricultural works and advocates o 
agricultural improvement, but also (we can say it from 
experience) to editors of agricultural periodicals, to find 
that new and really useful matter is continually making 
its app in tion with agricultural subjects. 
There is no of any exl in the foun- 
tain which feeds our agricultural literature ; nor, indeed, 
when one thinks of the vast extent of the territory whose 
waters rise there, can any fears be entertained of this 
fountain ever failing. Agriculture has too many and 
well-established relations with all natural science, to 
‘ail of proving a perennial source of instruction to her 
students. 
In the present volume we have the teachings of che- 
mistry bearing on agriculture, in articles on the composi- 
tion of soil, on the action of manures, and on the composi- 
tion of certain plants, (see papers by Dr. Daubeny, Mr. 
Spooner, and Mr. Nesbit): we have the teachings of 
the naturalist, in one of the valuable series of articles 
communicated by Mr. Curtis, on the insects affecting 
the farmers’ crops : we have the teachings of political 
economy, as well as of practical philanthropy, in an 
able article on the Condition of the Agricultural La- 
bourer: and, lastly, we have the results of intelligent 
observation and thoughtfulness, in one of the most inte- 
resting series of papers by able, practical men, that we 
ever remember to have seen in one volume. 
it is of course impossible in this journal fully to ex- 
hibit to our readers, or even merely to characterise the 
various essays here published. They are on all manner 
of subjects; drainage, tenant-right, short-horned cattle, 
one-horse carts, Cambridgeshire farming, burnt clay, 
preservation of root crops, measure work, fibrous cover- 
ing, the Potato, Tussac Grass, White Mustard, &e. &e.; 
and they will well repay a careful perusal. In this list we 
have not named Mr. Bravender’s article on the break- 
ing up of Grass lands, one of the most useful essays which 
the English Agricultural Society have yet published. 
It is written by a man of long and extensive experience. 
His advice may therefore be safely followed by land- 
owner or farmer. What isit? -“ Four millions of acres 
of land may even now be brokenup without inconvenience, 
or any great change in our system of management.” 
We cannot now quote further, we shall do so hereafter ; 
but do not let any one imagine that this sentence is 
merely the off-hand assertion of a plausible enthusiast. 
It is the sober summing up and unavoidable result of a 
series of most instructive and well established facts and 
estimates, a 
We hope this essay will be as extensively read as it 
deserves to be; if so, we doubt not that Mr. Bra- 
vender will have the merit of having urged truth upon 
this important subject with great power and very 
general success. 
Farm Memoranda. 
Sprineé Park Farm, near Croypon. — ( Report of 
Maidstone Farmers’ Club.) —[{ Continued from p. 622. 
—On entering Spring Park farm, the deputation first 
saw a Rye gratten, of about 18 acres, which appeared, 
from the stubble, to have borne a good erop, and which 
was now having manure plouglied in for Turnips. The 
manure had been carted out between the shocks of Rye. 
These had been carried on the previous day, and it was 
calculated that the Turnip seed would again be in the 
land within three weeks of beginning to cut the Rye. 
The soil was an exceedingly poor, pebbly, beach gravel, 
and such as without subsoil ploughing and careful cul- 
tivation could never have been expected to grow either 
Wheat or Turnips. The whole of this piece of Rye, 
according to Mr. Davis’s system, ought to have been fed 
off in the spring, and succeeded by Mangold Wurzel, and 
a part of it had been so treated. The green crops had 
grown so rapidly, however, through the mild winter and 
the early spring, and the demand for sheep had been so 
great, that Mr. Davis had allowed the Rye to ran to 
seed, giving the land an extra coat of manure to com- 
pensate for its different treatment from the other. The 
Mangold Wurzel plant,where the Rye had been fed (ex- 
cepting in a small hollow which had formerly been an 
Osier bed) was, ideri he soil, dingly good. 
A field of similarly gravelly soil of about 20 acres, 
next presented itself,which had borne an excellent crop 
of Peas. These had been carried, and were afterwards 
seen in good condition, in the stacks and barns at the 
homestead. These Peas were so well podded as to have 
been considered a good erop on average land and in or- 
dinary seasons,—but in the present season, Peas have 
failed almost universally, and the appearance of so fine 
a crop here excited much attention, Mr. Davis attri- 
buted his success principally to his having put in his 
seed before Christmas, and thus enabled the plants to 
get well into bloom before the drought came, Mr, Davis 
ca 
considers that early sowing is also a complete protec- 
tion against the dolphin, whieh he says never attacks 
crops. 
On He left of the carriage-road was a field of 12 acres, 
now bearing a crop of Buckwheat, which had been 
| sown at the end of May ; after Cow-Grass, mown twice 
|last year, and fed off this spring. This piece, accord- 
ing to Mr. Davis's regular system, should have been put 
in with Beans last September. The adjoining field is a 
tenacious clay, (but nothing like the Weald of Kent 
clay in stiffness) in Wheat, which, though it must have 
promised a much heavier crop previously to the storm 
that had beaten it down, was still a good crop. The 
effect of draining was here singularly perceptible. Mr. 
Davis had drained 4 feet deep, and at a considerable 
distance apart. That portion of the Wheat over the 
drains, and for some distance on each side of the drains, 
was at least 6 inches higher than in the land midway 
between the drains, and the ears were proportionately 
better. Mr. Davis had put the drains at so great a dis- 
tance apart, by way of experiment, and now intends to 
put another drain between each of those already laid 
down. The adjoining field bore a crop of Beans, just 
eut, with young Turnips between the rows. This crop 
of Beans is also a remarkable exception to the almost 
general failure of the crop, the haulm being abundantly 
podded, and the crop a large one. The Turnips here 
did not appear to have taken so well as in some other 
fields. Adjoining to this is a field of Clover, now luxu- 
riant ‘with a second growth, which looked remarkably 
well. On the upper side of the road, is a field of about 
14 acres, of a rather tenacious clay, which had been in 
Tares, the remaining portion of which was now being 
consumed, A {part of this field had been sown with 
Turnips on the ridge, which showed a promising plant. 
The remainder of the field, however, had broken up too 
dry to allow the rest of the Turnips being sown, and 
was waiting for rain. Next adjoining to this field, were 
about 14 acres of Oats, which promised to be a very 
superior crop. The next field, comprising about 17 acres, 
was in white Wheat, apparently the “Chidham White.” 
which was estimated at a very high produce, and is of 
the finest quality. This piece was a very striking in- 
stance of the success of thin sowing. Below this is a 
field of 8 acres, bearing a very luxuriant crop of Clover; 
and adjoining to this, about 7 acres of Beans, an excel- 
lent crop for the season ; the Turnips between which 
were a remarkably good plant. Next to the Beans is a 
gravelly field of very bad quality, consisting of about 
12 acres, in Oats; and although the dry season had been 
very much against them, still the crop promised to yield 
a very fair average. On the opposite side of the road, 
is another hungry gravelly field of 24 acres, which had 
borne a good crop of Peas, and which were afterwards 
inspected in the st . The advant ia 
Davis’s, system of early and thin sowing and deep 
ploughing was fully manifest in the yield, the Peas being 
well podded. Above this is a field of 13 acres, of a 
second growth of red Clover, on a hungry, sandy, soil, 
showing an excellent plant, which appears to be the case 
with all Mr. Davis's Clover, of the present year, pro- 
bably in consequence of his deep culture. Adjoining 
the Clover is a field bounded by the woods, of about 
14 acres of similar soil, in Barley, which promises an 
average crop, although partially suffering from the 
drought, and from rabbits. Adjoining to this, is about 
15 acres of a soil almost wholly composed of white 
sand, and which probably never would have been sown 
with Wheat at all by anybody but Mr. Davis. A sand 
pit was open a few feet from the Wheat plants, which 
offered a good opportunity of inspecting the soil, which 
consists of alternate layers of white and red sand, and 
gravel, to the bottom of the pit. So springy was the 
sand at about 5 feet from the surface, although near the 
top of the hill, that the sand-diggers had dug the sand 
in squares, about 4 feet deeper, and had scarcely finished 
each square before the excavation had become spit deep 
in water. This 15-acre piece had been once ploughed 
after Peas, and drilled with Wheat a foot apart. Mr. 
Davis had, of course, calculated on à small yield, but 
the crop was much more than might have been expected 
on such a wretched soil. 
A singular instance of the tendency of Wheat to tiller 
out, till it has furnished as many ears as the soil can 
bear, was witnessed on walking through this poor piece 
of Wheat, into the adjoining field of Wheat below, 
where the soil became gradually better. Although both 
the straw and the ears were few and far between on 
the upper piece, on entering the lower piece the roots 
had tillered out, and had become so studded with fine 
ears, as to strike every person present. The getting of 
even a slight crop off such a piece of poor Jand, is evi- 
dently more difficult than getting double the quantity 
from ordinary land. The stack-yard contained already 
two stacks of Clover, three stacks of Peas, a double- 
bayed barn, and two bays of the other barns filled with 
Peas, and the remainder holding the Rye. Mr. Davis 
uses the Kentish plough, which, he says, is the best 
implement he ever used for deep ploughing. 
The deputation visited, and have now described, every 
field on the farm, in order that it might not be said 
that they had not seen the whole, and that their report 
was consequently inaccurate. They have also pre- 
ferred making their most detailed report on the worst 
farm under Mr. Davis’s system, as affording the severest 
test of its merits ; and feel bound in fairness to bear 
testimony to that gentleman’s great success in its appli- 
cation. 
The most conspicuous points of success in Mr. 
Davis's system appear to be :—1st. The raising of sup e~ 
