The French Peasant- Farmers^ Seed Fund. 
343 
forwarded reports of a parallel nature, Marquaix stating that all 
the crops (wheat included) were very good, and Epehey giving a 
list of thirty-one persons who had had a good crop of wheat from 
our seed, and of ten other§ whose crop was bad or nil, the Mayor 
adding a note to the effect that there were two kinds of wheat, 
because one-fourth had completely failed. This is a very interesting 
case, because of the 41 recipients, 39 had a uniform quantity of 
25 litres each (about two-thirds of a bushel), showing that they 
were al Ismail peasant-farmers. Curiously enough, also, of the 
remaining persons, each of whom received 50 litres, one had a 
good crop and the other none at all. One other illustration, fur- 
nished by the commune of Montonvillers, in the canton of Villers 
Bocage, will be sufficient for the department of the Somme, In 
this commune there were six recipients of our wheat ; of whom five 
got nothing but straw, while the sixth, who received 90 litres of 
seed, namely, one 2-bushel bag and part of another, obtained a crop 
at the rate of 14 bushels per acre. The crop was probably pro- 
duced by the 2 bushels of seed, the remainder not contributing to 
it ; and the Mayor remarks that the seed given to this person was 
probably of a different kind from the rest, and that it was a 
bearded wheat. The other kind produced nothing but a kind of 
grass, which was at most fit only to be pastured by cattle, as it 
developed no flower-stalk. He also adds, that those who have 
taken part in the distribution think that either the nature of the 
soil or the climate is unfavourable to this description of wheat, 
and he begs us to believe that the peasantry are none the less 
grateful for the benefits which we have conferred upon them. 
" The foregoing reports are, it will be observed, from the depart- 
ment in which the operations of the fund were commencedj and 
where, if anywhere, the wheat should have been sown in good 
time. As much stress has been laid on the theory that the wheat 
was sown too late, I took great pains to investigate personally, 
in company with Mr. Pitman, a case in which some of our wheat 
yielded what, under the circumstances, appears a fair crop, after 
having been sown as late as the middle of April ; thus proving 
to my mind that the failure of our wheat in the Somme was not 
due to the lateness of the period of sowing, which was at least 
a month earlier than in the case I am about to describe, 
" The commune of Nonville is .situated nearly due south of Paris, 
and about six miles east of Nemours, in the department of the 
Seine-et-Marne, It is one of the three communes in this depart- 
ment which received spring corn from our Paris Committee, and 
it was probably one of the latest distributions of wheat made by 
any of the representatives of the Fund, the date of the Mayor's 
receipt being April 10th, 
" The soil of Nonville is a more or less sandy loam, lying on the 
