340 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



practice of the Gloucestershire farmers ; he ob- 

 serves (p. 183,) " That seed wheat should al- 

 ways be chosen from a poor soil for the seeding 

 of a richer one, and from a cold climate for cul- 

 tivation in a warmer ; by acting contrary to this 

 rule, we induce disease and a shortness in the 

 yield. In Gloucestershire the hill farmer 

 chooses seed from the exposed chalk Wolds of 

 Wiltshire, while the vale farmer procures his 

 seed wheat from the hills. But in the same 

 manner as spring wheat may be cultivated into 

 a winter variety, so may any kind of wheat be- 

 come acclimatised by careful cultivation ; this, 

 however, sometimes entails a slight change of 

 form; and hence have arisen tall and dwarf va- 

 rieties, early and late forms, and numerous 

 others.* "New varieties of wheat," adds Mr. 

 Buckman, " are constantly becoming the fash- 

 ion with the agriculturist ; but it must not be 

 concluded that this is the result of caprice, as it 

 is the nature of derivative plants to lose some 

 of their qualities after a long career of changes, 

 and hence varieties are always useful as a change, 

 and the more distinctive these are, if adapted 

 for our soil and climate, the better." 



The variety of the seed wheat, however, is not 

 the only very material consideration ; the pre- 

 vention of disease in it has long engaged the 

 farmer's attention. He strives, and commonly 

 successfully, to prevent blight, by immersing 

 the seed wheat in brine, or solutions of sulphate 

 of copper, &c. ; the beneficial effect of which 

 he is used to attribute, perhaps with correctness 

 to the fact that these substances kill the minute 

 sporules or seeds of the fungi which have at 

 tached themselves to the seed wheat, and are 

 the origin of the parasitical fungi which consti 

 tute blight. " But my own experiments upon 

 this subject, together with careful investiga 

 tion," remarks Professor Buckman, "seem to 

 warrant the conclusion that the beneficial ac- 

 tion of these steeps depends upon their destroy- 

 ing the germinating power of malformed and 

 diseased seeds and he recounts some experi 

 ments which, he thinks, show that the pickling 

 of wheat destroys the seed so as to prevent ger 

 mination when the seed is diseased or ill-formed 

 but that if perfect seed were always employed, 

 no pickling is at all necessary, it being perfect- 

 ly true that a diseased progeny must result 

 from an imperfect stock in plants as well as in 

 animals. 



The depth at which the seed is most benefi- 

 cially placed, is a question not in general very 

 carefully regarded. If we follow Nature here, 

 we shall find her seeds mostly dispersed or ger 

 minating at, or close to, the surface; and it has 

 been shown, in the case of some kind of seeds, 

 that if shaded from the direct rays of the sun, 

 they germinate, when thus placed, better than 

 in any other situation. As, however, with our 

 field operations, it is not possible to leave seeds 

 thus exposed to their various enemies, and as it 

 is necessary to cover them with earth, the next 

 enquiry that promises to be interesting is (still 



confining our attention to the wheat plant) what 

 depth from the surface happens to .be practical- 

 ly the best? Now the experiments of Buckman 

 and of Petri seem to concur in placing the 

 depth at from one to two inches, as that possess- 

 ing the maximum advantage. The result of 

 the experiments of Petri will be seen in the fol- 

 lowing table, which gives the result of sowing 

 given quantities of wheat at different depths : — 



Seed sown to 

 the depth of 



J inch. 



Came above 

 ground in 



11 

 12 

 18 

 20 

 21 

 22 

 23 



days. 



Prop'n of plants 

 that came up. 



all 



i 

 I 



Here we may observe that the number of seeds 

 which produced plants decreased in number, as 

 the depth beyond one inch increased ; and we 

 well remember some experiments by which it 

 was shown that some barley followed a similar 

 progressive rule, until when sown at a depth of 

 twelve inches, it entirely ceased to produce 

 plants. 



And if the depth materially influences the 

 growth of the seed, so also, as the farmer is 

 well aware, does the period of the year in which 

 they are sown. But although we possess this 

 general knowledge, yet, until the experiments 

 which I am about to describe, we had none 

 which gave the result of sowing the same wheat 

 on the same soil in each month of the year. In 

 the trials by Professor Buckman, he sowed in 



1851 and 1852 red Lammas wheat in plots, on 

 the 14th of each month, from June 1851 to May 



1852 ; the results he has thus tabulated : — 





Height. 



Length of 

 head. 



Remarks. 



1851. 



ft. 



in. 







June. . 



3 



5 



3 



Clean straw. 



July. . 



2 



10 



2 



Ditto. 



Aug. . 



4 



1 



4 



Ditto. 



Sept. . 



3 



11 



4 



Ditto. 



Oct. . 



3 



10 



4 



Rather blighted. 



Nov. . 



3 



9 



4 



Ditto. 



Dec. . 



3 



10 



3i 



Much blighted. 



1852. 









Jan. 



3 



10 



^ 



Ditto. 



Feb. . 



3 



6' 



Ditto. 



March . 







1 Failed as a crop, 



April . 









> but some ears 



May . 









J ripened. 



The summing up of Mr. Buckman I have ab- 

 breviated in the following paragraphs : — 



The winter was mild and wet — all the sam- 

 ples were gathered in August.. One chief dif- 

 ference between winter and spring wheat is. 



