116 
CULTURE OF WHEAT WITHIN THE TROPICS. 
“ Six hundred grains of Wheat were planted on the 31st of January, 1837, 
last quarter of the moon. The soil was improved by good Sheep-pen manure and 
sifted sand (calcareous*). Planted in drills, rather thick , and the seeds in the 
drills firmly pressed down. It began to come up on the 6th of February, but was 
not all up until the 18th. On the 27th of March it began to shoot out ears , being 
fifty-five days. In ninety days, the 1st of May, the whole was cut in, being 
completely dry, yielding nearly a thousand ears , containing on an average forty 
seeds each, in all fully forty thousand grains. The weather in February was 
cold, the thermometer was as low as 59°, March and April ranging from 70° to 
80°. The period was a very dry one; hardly one-third of the plants were 
watered once a day.” 
Had the result of Mr. Butler’s experiment equalled the average of Mr. 
Storr’s, the produce of his 600 grains, the weight of which could not have 
greatly exceeded the 0.0488276 of an avoirdupois pound, ought to have yielded 
33,000.8 ears containing 2,145,050 grains, weighing, at the rate Of 15,867 grains 
to the avoirdupois pound of 7000 grains, 135,195 pounds; while the actual 
return obtained did not amount to what might have been expected from 181 or 
182 grains; they had been planted sufficiently apart, and in a soil sufficiently 
rich to admit of their tillering to a reasonable extent. The prevalence of a very 
dry season also operated powerfully against the crop, and no doubt prevented the 
harvest from reaching to anything like its attainable limits. Mr. Butler, 
however, so far from being disheartened or disappointed by these results, expresses 
it as his opinion that it is capable of yielding a very large return annually. 
Taking the average of Mr. Storr’s experiments at 55 tillers from every grain? 
and 65 grains of Wheat from each tiller, and allowing two grains of seed to each 
hole, with a clear interval of twelve inches between each hole, a British statute 
acre will take. 87,120 grains of Wheat, weighing, at 136 grains to the troy 
drachm of 60 grains, 5.490751bs, or about 5^ft>s, the return from which, at the 
average rate of increase assumed above, should be, 4,791,600 tillers, yielding 
311,454,000 grains, and weighing, at 15.867 grains to the pound avoirdupois, 
19,629.5. or 19,629^lbs, which is above 3,566 times the weight of the original 
seed; while had double the quantity of seed named been employed, the amount 
of return would most probably not have been greater, if so great, from the 
increasing closeness of the plants preventing a due development of the tillers. 
*“ Lime/’as Colonel Le Couteur very justly observes, “is one of the most indispensable 
manures for Wheat, imparting more whiteness to straw, and more fullness and weight to the grain 
than any other: it moreover attracts humidity from the atmosphere, and thus nourishes the roots. 
Hence the advantage of the calcareous sand mixed with Mr. Butler’s dressing may be easily 
understood.” 
