Injluence of Climate on Cultivation, 
173 
crops. A sandy soil is well known to be naturally more fertile 
for cereals in a moist than in a dry climate. So, on the other 
hand, careful tillag:e, having for its object the improvement of the 
physical properties of soils, by rendering them more retentive of 
moisture, is more required in dry climates. The painstaking 
management which the Norfolk farmer pursues in pulverizing 
his weakest sands for a crop of barley contrasts strikingly with 
that followed in moister districts. Mr. Peirsen, Framlingliam, 
Suffolk, writes, in Messrs. Raynhird's ' Farming of Suffolk : ' — 
" On light soils that have been sheep-folded it is a common 
practice to plough three times : by this means the manure is 
more equally dispersed, and experience has proved that a dry 
summer does not injure the barley so much as it does when the 
land is ploughed only once." Arthur Young, and other early 
writers on agriculture, drew attention to the careful cultivation of 
the light lands for barley in t!ie eastern counties as a means of 
resisting the effects of drought. In cool and moist climates 
ploughing sheep-folded land more than once where the soil is 
light has never been practised as a system ; nay, it is too often 
supposed that pulverizing light lands in the spring rather has the 
effect of dissipating the moisture than of rendering them more 
absorptive and retentive. 
The necessity which the Norfolk farmer felt for having his 
land thoroughly comminuted for the production of spring-sown 
crops also paved the way for the general introduction of sowing 
by the drill : this implement has only slowly extended in moist 
climates ; one reason, no doubt, being the less careful culture 
which the land receives, and where late sowing is followed it is 
of no advantage. The crop tlien grows rapidly and keeps the 
weeds in check, and the use of the hoe is less needed for this 
purpose. It is of more importance to have the seed distributed 
equally over the land when the time of sowing is delayed, as 
there is then less time for the crop to send its roots throughout 
the soil ; hence wide drilling for cereals can be followed ad- 
vantageously for autumn sowing, but narrower intervals are 
preferable as the season advances. 
The influence of climate on the productive qualities of the oat 
crop is so well recognised that it will be unnecessary to dwell 
long upon the subject. It is a plant that requires a larger amount 
of moisture than either barley or wheat : the latter two become 
plumper and thinner in the skin when the temperature is mode- 
rately high during the ripening season : on the other hand, oats 
lose their plumpness under a high temperature — they become 
lean and light in weight. 
In even moderately moist and cool climates, oats arc more 
fluctuating in their produce on light soils than any other cereal. 
