rnt n mrrnix of Incrcasinf/ the Crop. 
381 
sequent <i;rowtli until they bop^In to tiller, when they soon heroine so 
stronw as to be quite beyond the attacks of their enemies ; indeed 
as inaccessible to them in the mrhj autumn as wheat g-rown in the 
usual way is in the early summer. Nor is there any danger of 
even the earliest planted wheat becoming "winter-proud," if we 
employ the proper quantity of a pedigree seed which has 1>een 
trained for the purpose of tillering out flat over the surface : this 
being altogether a different thing from the early sowing of two 
bushels of seed per acre, when, the plants being crowded, 
growth can only take place vjnmrds. 
4th. The time afforded for RcpJanti)i(/ in case of entire failure. — 
Wlien wheat is drilled, as proposed, early in September, the crop 
is usually either destroyed or 'perfectly .tafe within six weeks, as 
by this time the plants will either liave succumbed to the attacks 
of their enemies, or will have got beyond their reach. Ample 
opportunity is, therefore, afforded for re-sowing if it should chance 
to be required. The utmost risk, therefore, encountered in 
adopting this system is simply that of losing the seed — one- 
sixth part of a bushel per acre. How slight this risk is may be 
gathered from the fact, that out of nearly five hundred different 
persons who have planted this wheat during the past autumn 
(1861), only if?ro have reported the destruction of the crop — in 
one case by excessive drought, in the other by slug. 
We have seen then that " pedigree " in wheat gave, iclien 
drilled in the usual icay (at the rate of 6 pecks per acre), Nov. 
20, 1860, a produce of 54 bushels per acre in the harvest of 
1861, which was not a yielding one ; and when we consider that 
this was under circumstances where the plant was so thick that 
the valuable properties accumulated in the seed could be only jMr- 
tialhj developed, we shall be inclined to place a high value upon 
pedigree alone, as applied to the wheat-crop as usually cultivated, 
and to confess that, while in almost every other department of 
agriculture, our countrymen have by patient study and experi- 
ment effected improvements which have excited the admiration 
of the Avhole world, our cereals have been comparatively uncared 
for. 
I have written this Essay in the hope of attracting attention to 
this too much neglected subject, twelve years' continued investi- 
gation of which has matured in my mind the conviction that it 
is of the greatest national importance, and that Great Britain 
may yet grow enough wheat to feed her people. 
The Manor House, Brighton, December, 18G1. 
2 D 2 
