Agriculture in England. 1 1 



produces any increased benefit to the crop ; and no one will 

 venture to assert that he knows the point beyond which an addi- 

 tional outlay is a mere loss of money and waste of a manure 

 which is becoming daily more scarce. Again, as to the kind of 

 soil on which bones may profitably be applied, there are some on 

 which they have as utterly failed^ as they have signally succeeded 

 on others ; but, on this important point, as on the preceding, the 

 valuable answers returned, chiefly by practical farmers, to the 

 questions, sent out by the Doncaster Agricultural Association, 

 at the instance of Mr. Childers, afford the only authentic data to 

 which we can refer at present for guidance. 



After the ground has been duly prepared, there is still ample 

 room for inquiry and for improvement. On the best season of 

 wheat-sowing, for instance, there exists great difference of opinion 

 amongst cultivators. Dr. Mavor, in his ' General View of the 

 Agriculture of Berkshire,' published no longer ago than the year 

 1813, states that, on the chalk-hills of that county, wheat was sown 

 as early as August. This year a practical farmer of that very district 

 has given his opinion that it matters not how late wheat is sown, 

 and that December is soon enough. The quantity, too, of grain 

 to be sown is a matter of varying practice, and there are high 

 authorities for thick sowing and for thin. Yet a saving of half a 

 bushel of seed, if it can be properly made, will be a gain of 3^. per 

 acre ; or of about one -sixth of the average rent of arable land to 

 the renter, and of 240,000 quarters, or 600,000/., to the country 

 each year. Now, this question can obviously be solved, not by 

 loose argument, or appeals to practice, which is always appealed 

 to while and where each practice obtains, but by careful, extended 

 observation continued through a variety of mild and hard winters, 

 wet and dry springs and summers. As to the quality of seed to 

 be sown, no one can doubt that much good may here be rea- 

 sonably expected from increased attention. 



That well-known variety of barley, the Chevallier, is an instance 

 in point. The discoverer. Dr. Chevallier, has obligingly sent 

 the following account of its origin, in reply to an inquiry from our 

 secretary " An extraordinary fine ear was observed and selected, 

 by a labourer of mine, in the parish of Debenham, 1819 ; in the 

 spring of 1820 I planted 27 grains in my garden: in 1825 I 

 planted half-an-acre of this species, and half-an-acre of the com- 

 mon species ; the land under precisely similar conditions of culti- 

 vation. The produce of the first amounted to Sh coombs ; of the 

 second, 6g. The ears of the first averaged 34 grains ; the second 

 30 : the grains of the first heavier, as four to five. In the course 

 of five or six years it was generally accepted and approved in my 

 neighbourhood, as I promoted its fair trial, and charged only the 

 current market-price for it." 



