1 OH 
CARTER AND CO.’S GARDENER’S VADE-MECUM FOR 1862. 
water of the cow-house flows. This flooding follows the 
cutting immediately ; the Italian Rye-grass uses the am- 
moniacal mixture during the rapid growth which imme- 
diately ensues, and it soon covers the land, and hinders 
the growth of anything else. In five weeks the land will 
be again covered three feet high with a thick luxuriant 
growth, weighing at least sixteen to twenty tons per acre. 
This is cut and followed by another manuring in a similar 
manner, and a third cut of sixteen to eighteen tons may 
be expected towards the end of August, and a further 
manuring gives ten or twelve tons per acre in October. 
In spring another dressing with water and manure gives a 
cutting towards the end of April, and a second and third 
cutting may be had in like manner, producing forty-fivo to 
fifty tons per acre, by the end of August. The land may 
then be broken up. During the two years that acre will 
have yielded between 80 and 100 tons of green food per 
acre, in seven or eight cuttings. By the use of a ton of 
guano, sulphate of ammonia, gas-water, &c., washed-in 
well, 700 tons of water and liquid manure, Mr. Telfer 
stated that his seven Scotch acres yielded 270 tons per 
annum. 
When Italian Rye-grass is not liberally treated as to 
manure, it is liable to run to seed stems and straw, and to 
disappoint its cultivator. 
OCTOBER. 
This is the seed-time for Wheat and winter Beans (sec Februnry), for various winter-sown spring forago crops, as Rye 
and Vetches, and the time for autumn cultivation, so that it is necessarily full of labour. There is a great deal also done 
this month in preparation of land for the Beans, Oats, Carrots, Mangold Wurzels, &c., sown next spring. 
The Nurse- /a hour, therefore, includes preparation of land for sowing Wheat and winter Beans, ploughing and cultivation 
of stubbles for the fallow crop of next yeur, and hauling out manure to the lands, to which, for these crops, it is to be at once 
apolied. 
The Hand-labour includes Potato digging, and all the labour of autumnal culture. 
Wheat Culture is carried on successfully in every 
county in the United Kingdom. The fitness of climute for 
it is not so much a question of latitude as of elevation. 
There are districts in Devonshire quite as unfitted for 
Wheat culture, on account of climatal difficulties, as any in 
Scotland. During the past year the climate of most of 
the country has been on the very edge of that beyond which 
Wheat will not ripen, and accordingly the Wheat harvest 
lias been almost unprecedentedly late. 
The choice of a variety of seed is determined as much 
by the soil as by the climate. As a general rule, Red Wheats 
are hardier than White ; and, both on poor land and on 
fenny soils, especially in England, Red Wheats are pre- 
ferred ; they are less liable to mildews and to blights, and 
some of the sorts are more productive. The White sorts, on 
suitable soils, are of course more valuable per acre ; for a 
sample of Fenton White Wheat , shown along with one of 
Browick Red, or perhaps along with one of the so-called 
Cone Wheats, presents as good an ordinary contrast as can 
be desired to illustrate the influence of quality upon sale. 
Several years ago, reports were obtained by the Highland 
Society of the relative merits of the Wheats then in culti- 
vation, and the so-called Hunter’s White Wheat proved in 
every case the most valuable, taking oushels and quality 
both into account. Since then many new sorts have been 
grown, and Browick, and Spalding, and Nursery, and Shir- 
rilf’s new Red Wheat, and the April Wheat, also a red 
sort, are all first-class varieties of that, class, while Fenton, 
Hopetoun, Velvet Ear or Rough Chaff, Red Straw, White, 
and many others are first-class White Wheats. For rich 
and straw-growing soils, the Fenton and the Velvet-eared 
White Wheats, and the Piper’s Thickset, and the Spalding 
Red. all naturally short-strawed sorts, are to be preferred. 
The land to bear Wheat may be after Turnips, Mangold 
Wurzel, Beans, or Clover. The Mangolds are pulled and 
carried home in October and November ; their leaves may 
be either carried off or scattered evenly and ploughed 
under. If carried off, the land may be simply cultivated 
with the scarifier, and at once sown with the Suffolk drill. 
If the land be in good order and well drained, and the 
seed be sown early in October, one bushel of grain per acre 
(which contains 600, fJOO seeds, or about fifteen seeds for 
every square foot) is sufficient seeding. If sown later, it 
may be well to sow six pecks per acre. When Turnips 
are the preceding crop, a part is often fed upon the land 
by sheep, and the seed-time may be put off till January or 
February. After Beans, which have been manured in the 
drills, the land may be cross-ploughed if the ground bo 
well drained, and the seed sown or drilled after a harrowing, 
and left without water-furrows ; or it is ploughed so ns 
partly to cross the drills, still retaining the direction up 
and down the slope in ridges, one perch wide, which are 
harrowed, and sown, and water-furrowed ; or, as is gene- 
rally the case in the English culturo of the Bean crop, which 
is sown either in nearer drills or even broadcast, leaving a 
stubble not so clean as may be desired ; these stubbles are 
scarified, and pared, and harrowed, and burned, and then 
ploughed in ridges as aforesaid. 
In ordinary management in England, however, Wheat 
comes after Clover. Batches of couch or other root- weeds 
are forked out after the haymaking, and the land is ma- 
nured and ploughed in ridges about 5§ yards wide, a 
skim coulter being used, by which the grassy side of the 
furrow slice is complcte'y buried. In light soils the 
drill presser, following every other plough, presses home 
the furrow, and Becd may be sown broadcast with the cer- 
tainty of its falling into these drills and coming up in 
rows ; but, commonly, the land lies a month or six weeks, 
and is then harrowed down, and the Suffolk drill is used 
to sow the seed. The condition as to wetness in which 
the soil may be for Wheat, is not of any particular im- 
portance when sown in Autumn. It may, indeed, be so 
far wet as to cause some poaching by the treading of the 
horses without any harm coming of it. As to the proper 
seed-time, the object should be to have the young plant so 
far forward that in Spring it shall be in a condition to 
make the full use of the circumstances of Spring-time. 
Whenever Spring comes in the guise of Summer (as in 
some other countries), it is best to have a grassy full- 
grown plant fit to use all favouring circumstances of tem- 
perature and soil. When Springs are cold and backward, 
it is not of such importance to have an early plant. In 
the former case, Spring-sown Wheat will not produce a 
harvest; in the latter, Spring-sown Wheat is often as pro- 
ductive as any other. 
The seed is to be pickled as already described (August), 
as a preservative against bunt, and when properly pre- 
pared it is sown by the Suffolk drill in rows, which may 
be u foot apart. An experiment by Mr. Morton, of Whit- 
field farm, in Gloucestershire, in which intervals at 6, 9, 
12, 15, 18, and 24 inches were used, led to the conclusion 
that the interval of 15 inches was the best. In Spring-time 
the land is harrowed, or hoed, and rolled, and if very 
luxuriant, it is fed down by sheep, or flagged with a hook, 
or mown with a scythe ( see May). The crop is ready to 
cut as soon as the grain will no longer yield a milky juice 
on being squeezed between the fingers. It has been proved 
abundantly that the last process of ripening is to form a 
