536 
On Thick and Thin Sowing. 
some veiy fine cars amongst the thinnest sown, and enough to 
show that under good husbandry a good crop was possible ; and 
on seeing the crop, your order was to continue the experiment 
in 1844. 
This was set about very carefully at the home farm in the 
middle of a field which had been twice mowed, clover ley well 
manured from the farm-yard, all the field (22 acres) as nearly 
done alike as possible: the field was all drilled first, to plug No. 
1 of the experiment with 9 pecks of wheat per acre ; then followed 
the thin sowing in parcels of 2 ridges each. No. 1 being drilled at 
the rate of 3 pecks per acre ; No. 2, 4 pecks ; No. 3, 5 pecks ; 
No. 4, G pecks; and No. 5, 7 pecks; the remainder of the field 
being drilled at the rate of 9 pecks per acre. 
Owing to an attack of wireworm, which damaged in a certain 
degree the whole experiment, this trial was not altogether satis- 
factory: it was however so far encouraging as to warrant the 
reduction of seed over the whole crop sown in 184.') to a very 
considerable extent, and the curtailment of the tmmber of lots in 
the trial also to 3, beginning with 4 pecks and finishing with 6, 
the highest quantity sown being only 8 pecks, and that the least 
portion of the crop. 
The exact result of the experiment in the two last years is 
given below, and it may be well to mention here, that in conse- 
q\ience of the good appearance of the thinnest sown in the spring 
of this year, I was induced to sow 34 acres with only 68 bushels 
of oats in a field where we had carted off about 21 tons of 
Swedish turnips to the acre, and the promise of the oat crop is 
highly satisfactory, notwithstanding the protracted sowing from 
the continued wetness of the winter and spring. We are now 
preparing with all dispatch the land for this year's wheat sowing, 
the greater portion of which will be done with 4 pecks to the acre, 
increasing up to 6, only as the season advances, and giving to the 
thinnest sown the chance of early tillering, an advantage second 
only to high cultivation in securing good crops from reduced quan- 
tities of seed corn. 
I remain, &c. 
Hursley Park, Hants. W. Fowlik. 
