The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-10-12

distinct sets of roots. They all know
that fall wheat is often drawn out of the
ground by the alternate frosts and thawe
of spring, but how few know that nature
has provided mes rs by which this Grad
ication may, in the majority of cases,
be prevented.
In the accompanying engravings may
be seen the right and the wrong way OF
sowing wheat. The common practice is
illustrated in Fig. l. The seed is scat
tered broadcast over the ploughed sur
face; the land is narrowed more or less,
and the wheat, covered by perhaps an
| inch of soil, is left to take its chance till
harvest.
The reader will observe that in this
case the two sets of roots and the pipe OF
communication are so close together that
they are deprived of any chance of exert
ing their resp, ctive powers, the conse-
quence of which is commonly seen by the
loss of plant in the spring.
But look at Fig. g. Does not the very
appearance of the plant argue stability?
Do not the lower or germinal roots show
like. so many stays, exercising a pro-
digious power of retention against the
For my part, 1 cannot conceive how
any one who looks, even carelessly, at
these two engravings, can ever again be
induced to follow the ancient plan OF
planting.
By no means, however, is this the only
benefit to be derived from deep-sowing.
When all danger of frost is over, when
the spring growth has begun, another
advantage is apparent: "tillering" COM
mences. And it is in consonance with
observations extending over more than
thirty years, that I say: Plant deep, and
the number of stems, and therefore of
ears, will be doubled. The whole of the
"tillering" proceeds from the coronal roots,
and If they are not crowded upon by the
germlnal roots their propensity to null
tiply stems is marvellous. Any one pass
ing by field of wheat, sown in the Gus
tomary way, just before harvest, will
find, if he examines it, that the plant has
very little root hold; it is easy to pull it
out of the ground. This is owing to the
extreme looseness which long succession
of cropping has superinduced. No amount
of rolling will cure the fault. Something
else is wanting and this brings me to
the real object of this article-the use of
sheep in wheat growing.
1t is my firm belief that the real rea-
son why our wheat crops only yield half
as much as the English crops is, that in
England they utilize sheep as grain
growers, while we only consider them as
wool and mutton makers. I have even
heard of an essay on "Sheep as the
Scavengers of the Farm" meaning
probably, "pickers up of unconsidered
trifes" in the form of weeds. Now.
though | object entirely to sheep being
degraded into "scavengers, /, with
admirable inconsistency, admire them
greatly in their office of dung-carriers
And with reason; for I was born and
bred up to manhood in that part of Eng
land In which the whole of the farms are
indebted for their very existence, as pro-
ductlve soil, to the sheepfold. Along
the margin of many of the lovely brooks
Drivers we, in our little island, call them),
run the long ranges of the chalk forma-
ton, with their rolling hills covered with
the shortest and sweetest of heritage,
trending back from the valleys on either
side towards the sea, and presenting a
front to whatever wind may please to
blow: Bleak and bare thou h they be,
and dry, the heaviest rain cannot soak
them, the hottest sun cannot parch them.
This is the country of the Down sheep
of those sturdy, short-wooled, dark faced,
highly favored muttons, whose honor
and glory it is to have converted the
barren soils of their native hills into the
most productive grain bearing farms in
the Kingdom, and to have furnished the
manufacturer with the most useful, if not
the finest, material for his looms. And
among these hills lived race of men al
most as hardy as the sheep they tended.
The last of the old Kemti8h Yeonaera, an
eminently independent and manly class,
were gradually dying off in my boyhood.
Many of them could count back their
ancestors in the old manor house up to
and beyond the Conquest-but beside
the yeomen, there was large class of
tenant-farmers, brought up at home, very
little taught beyond mere reading, but
as honest, hardworking a set of men as
; ever the sun shone on. They were be-
hind the times, no doubt, but they knew
their business as sheep-farmers, and they
farmed and brought into marvellous state
of fertility some of the poorest land in
existence.
The soil on the chalk, when first broken
up by the plough, is of a very inconsis-