Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/383

Rh GRAIN CHOPS.] AGRICULTURE 357 supposing no mildew to fall on it, even then the plant _ ripens unevenly ; the early stems being ready for the sickle, while the late-grown shoots have scarcely lost their verdure. But if mildew come when the stem is soft, and succulent, and porous, instead of being, as it should be at that time, glazed and case-hardened against its attacks, the enemy enters in and checks the circulating sap ; and the end is, blackened straw, light ears, and shrivelled grain. Therefore, sow early. Let the plant tiller before winter. Give every stem an equal start at spring ; and then, with a strict adherence to rule, there need be no alarm as to the result, subject only to those visitations from which no wheat, on any system, in the same description of soil, and under the same climate, is secure.&quot; (See pamphlet, Word in Season, p. 36.) &quot;The advantages of the system of corn-growing which I have described are principally these : First, while one crop of wheat is growing, the unsown intervals of the acre are being fallowed and prepared for another. This the farmer well knows to be of infinite moment, meeting, as it does, one of the greatest difficulties he has to contend with. Next, upon this half-portion of the acre, tilled as I describe, there is a yield equal to average crops on a whole acre. Then, for half the portion of an acre, there is, of course, only half the labour and half the expense of an entire acre required for cultivation. And, lastly, the hand-labour required finds constant employment for the poor.&quot; (Ibid., p. 17.) &quot;After harrowing, and cleaning, and levelling the whole, I marked out the channels for the seed with my prcsscr implement, which is drawn with one horse, and presses two lands at once. My scheme of implements, to be complete, embraced a drill, which was to act immediately behind the presser-wheels, and to drop seed by seed into the hard channels. The spindle of the presser was to turn the drill-wheels, and the boxes were to be made removable. Being unable to accomplish this in time for this year s sowing, 1 had the seed, as heretofore, dropped by hands, and covered over by rollers. These rollers form the roller implement in the same frame, and are managed thus : the three-wheeled pressers are removed from their sockets, and in their place two rough rollers, formed of several wheels on the self-cleaning principle, are introduced, and cover over two lands at once. The portion of the field thus seeded will lie in this firm but rough state till spring time. Then, when the rollers have been applied again to keep the roots of the plant well in their place, they too will be removed from the frame, and light wheels and hoes will be attached, forming the horse-hoc implement, for hoeing and stirring between the wheat. &quot;There is yet one other use for the implement frame. The intervals of the wheat having been trenched in autumn, and well and frequently stirred by the common scarifier at spring, are shut out by the wide-spreading wheat-plant in June from all further processes till the crop is cut and carried. They are then to be moved and levelled by the common one-horse scarifier for seed time. After this will follow the harrow. The hoes will be removed from the frame, and two small harrows will be attached, to cover two lands at once ; and with this implement the horse will walk on the stubble-laud, between what before were the intervals ; and the cycle of operations is now complete. &quot;In all these operations (excepting in that of scarifying) the sown lands, and lands about to be made ready for sowing, are untouched by the foot of man or horse. &quot;The time occupied in scarifying the land is about an hour the acre ; in heavily pressing the channels for the seed, half an hour ; in the other operations about 20 or 25 minutes.&quot; (Pp. 25, 26.) &quot;The presser-drill, spoken of in p. 25, is completed, and I now sow the four acres in 90 minutes, timed by watch ; being at the rate of 18 or 20 acres a day in a day of 8 hours, with a horse of average power and speed. &quot;It has been thought advisable to keep the drill in its own frame, devoting another frame to the roller-wheels or crusher, the hoes, the scarifiers, and harrows, all of which are made removable, and which, with the exception of the spade, the hand-hoc, and the common scarifier for stirring the intervals, perform the whole cycle of operations for cultivating the land for wheat.&quot; (Pp. 33, 34.) &quot; I have only to show now, by my fresh balance-sheet, how with suitable implements, on wheat-land, the whole scheme I propose is economical, as well as eaay and expeditious. &quot; One double digging in autumn. . . 1 10 Three stirrings with scarifier at spring (6d.). 030 One ditto with scarifier and harrow implement, before sowing. . . . . .010 Two pecks of seed (5s. the bushel). . . 026 Pressing and drilling. . . . . 010 Kough rolling. . . . . . .006 Four hoeings between wheat with horse-shoe im plement (Gd.) 020 Bird-keeping. . . . . . .020 Carried forward 220 Brought forward All the operations from reaping to marketing Kates, taxes, and interest .... 220 120 10 Total amount of outlay 3 H &quot;The produce, supposing it equal to that of former years, in round numbers, would be : &quot; Four quarters and two bushels of wheat (at 40s.). 810 One ton and 12 cwt. of straw (at 2 the ton). 340 Deduct outlay 11 14 3 14 Total amount of profit. 8 0&quot; (Ibid., p. 30.) Particular attention was directed to this system of wheat culture by a lecture on Tull s husbandry, delivered by Professor Way, at a council meeting of the Royal Agri cultural Society of England, and by the animated discus sion which followed ; when several gentlemen who had visited Mr Smith s farm bore testimony to the continued excellence of his crops, and intimated that they and others had begun to test the system upon their own farms. If such a practice can indeed be pursued on the generality of clay-soils, then the puzzling problem of how to cultivate them Avith a profit is solved at once. It is not to be thought that practical farmers would regard otherwise than with incredulity a system which so flatly contradicts all existing theory and practice. The facts submitted to them by Mr Smith being beyond challenge, they would naturally imagine there must be some peculiarity in the soil at Lois Wcedon which enabled it to sustain such heavy and continued demands on its fertility; and that the issue, there and elsewhere, must eventually be utter sterility. For our own part, believing that we have exceeding much to learn in every department of agriculture, we cannot thus summarily dispose of these facts. We simply accept them as true, and leave the exposition of them to experience, whose verdict we await with much interest. But Mr Smith is not the only person who has furnished us with information regarding the continuous growth of wheat for a series of years on the same soil. Mr Lawes, at Rothamstead, in Herts, so well known by his interesting papers on agricultural chemistry in the Royal Agricultural Society s Journal, has furnished some facts in connection with the culture of wheat on clay soils to which farmers were little prepared to give credence. Mr Caird, who visited Rothamstead early in 1851, thus refers to the sub ject in his valuable work: &quot; On a soil of heavy loam, on which sheep cannot be fed on tur nips, 4, 5, and 6 feet above the chalk, and therefore uninfluenced by it, except in so far as it is thereby naturally drained, ten crops of wheat have been taken in succession, one portion always without any manure whatever, and the rest with a variety of manure, the effects of which have been carefully observed. The seed is of tho red cluster variety, drilled uniformly in rows at 8 inches apart, and two bushels to the acre, hand-hoed twice in spring, and kept perfectly free from weeds. When the crop is removed the land is scarified with Ben tail s skimmer, all weeds are removed, it is ploughed once, and the seed for the next crop is then drilled in. During the ten years, the land, in a natural state, without manure, has produced a uniform average of 16 bushels of wheat an acre, with 100 Ib. of straw per bushel of wheat, the actual quantity varying with the change of seasons between 14 and 20 bushels. The repetition of the crop has made no diminution or change in the uniformity of the average, and the conclusion seems to be established, that if the land is kept clean, and worked at proper seasons, it is impossible to exhaust this soil below the power of producing 1 6 bushels of wheat every year. &quot; But this natural produce may be doubled by the application of certain manures. Of these, Mr Lawes s experiments led him to conclude that ammonia is the essential requisite. His conclusions are almost uniform, that no organic matter affects the produce of wheat, except in so far as it yields ammonia ; and that the whole- of the organic matter of the corn crop is taken from tho atmosphere by the medium of ammonia. There is a constant loss of ammonia going on by expiration, so that a larger quantity must be supplied than is contained in the crop. For practical purposes, 5 Ib. o