its reception by ploughing. It has been held that this important preliminary of pulverizing the soil can hardly be carried to excess, the expense attending it forming almost the only limit to its prosecution. Cato the censor, who, in addition to his accomplishments as a warrior and a statesman, showed an intimate acquaintance with rural economy, has recorded his opinion on the necessity of thoroughly turning up the soil. In his treatise, De re rustica,' he has laid it down as the first rule in husbandry to plough well, and the second rule-to plough

6

Two distinct practices are followed in committing the seed to the earth. The most ancient and most commonly used of these is that of scattering the seed from the hand of the sower over the whole surface; and this is characteristically called sowing broad-cast. The other method, which is comparatively of modern introduction, is that of depositing the seed in holes formed in straight furrows, and at regular intervals, which is called drilling, or dibbling; while the processes which accompany it, and which are impracticable with the broad-cast method, are distinguished as the horse-hoeing or drill system of husbandry.

Lord Bacon says, that, in his time (the beginning of the seventeenth century), attempts had been made to plant wheat, but that the plan was abandoned, although undoubtedly advantageous, as involving too much labour †. In 1669, Evelyn furnished to the Royal Society a description of a sowing machine invented by Locatelli, an Italian, who had ob tained a patent for its use in Spain, having proved its utility by public experiment. The drill plough was, however, not used in England, and was, perhaps, quite unknown to a body of men who are proverbially * Cap. lxi. + Sylva Sylvarum. See Beckmann's History of Inventions,' vol. iv. p. 45, ed. 1817.

ślow all over the world to adopt any improvement, till public attention was awakened to it, in the early part of the last century, by the celebrated Jethro Tull, who, after practically following for some years his own improved plan of husbandry, and thereby proving its advantages, published a particular account of his process in the year 1733. This work, which he entitled An Essay on Horsehoeing Husbandry,' became highly popular, compelling the attention of English agriculturists to the subject, and engaging no less the consideration of scientific foreigners. The system of Mr. Tull consisted in discarding the old method of scattering seed upon the land broad-cast, and in substituting a mode of sowing the grain in straight rows or furrows by means of an implement more perfect than Locatelli's machine, which delivered the seed at proper intervals, and in the exact quantity that was found most beneficial. Spaces of fifty inches breadth were left between the furrows, so that the land could be ploughed or horse-hoed in these intervals at various periods during the growth of the crop, the object of these hoeings being to bring fresh portions of the soil into contact with the fibrous roots of the plants, and thus to render every part in turn available for their nutrition. One material advantage that results from the new method of husbandry is the saving which it occasions in seed-corn, and which is said to amount to five-eighths of the quantity usually expended in the old method. The comparative merits of the two plans have for so long a time been submitted to the surest of all tests, that of experience, and have been so well examined by competent persons, who have given the result of their inquiries to the world, that it cannot be necessary to do more in this place than refer the reader to those authors for farther information.

The manner in which plants are produced through the germination of seeds is so well known, that in any community where the human mind has been advanced in that degree which incites to the cultivation of the earth, it would perhaps be difficult to find a man so insensible to the workings of nature by which he is surrounded, as not to have noticed with admiration the phenomena accompanying the developement of vegetable fecundity. It is true we know not how this standing miracle is brought about; and, in all human probability, we never shall be able to pierce the veil wherein the inciting energy is shrouded to which that fecundity is owing; but is it possible for us, while conscious that it exists, not to be grateful for the benevolence whereby that energy is ceaselessly called into action? At one end of the groove, in a grain of wheat, is a small protuberance, as we have already mentioned, which is the germ or embryo of the future plant. This organ has been appropriately called corculum (little-heart). It contains within itself a principle, which, if rightly managed, is capable of evolving not only a plant of wheat, with its abundant spike, but also plant after plant, and spike after spike, until, in the course of a few harvests, the progeny of this little germ would become capable of feeding a nation. Thus it is, that in the lapse of ages, amidst the desolations of rude conquerors, and the alternations which the finest portions of the earth have endured from civilization to semibarbarism, the vital principle of vegetable life destined for the chief support of the human race has not been lost; and it has remained to man, like fire, which he alone of all animals has subjected to his use, to be called forth at his bidding to administer to his support, his comfort, and his advance in every art of social existence.

The number of stalks thrown up by one grain of

wheat is indefinite, and depends upon local causes. This power of multiplication, as possessed by the grain-bearing plants, is called tillering. In its progress, the stalks do not rise immediately from the germ, but are thrown out from different points of the infant sprouts while yet they remain in contact with the moist soil. An increase of the cereal plants, by this means, is sometimes produced beyond anything conceivable by those persons who have not attended to the fact. But for it, the casualties to which these important plants are liable during the earlier stages of vegetation, would in many cases operate fatally to the hopes of the farmer. One or two circumstances may be mentioned in which this power of multiplying themselves at the roots is of the highest advantage in the cultivation of the cereal grains. An insect-musca pumilionis-is accustomed to deposit its eggs in the very core of the plumule or primary shoot of wheat, so that it is completely destroyed by the larvæ.

Did the plant possess within itself no means of repairing this injury, the whole previous labour of the husbandman would in this case have been in vain, But this destruction occurring in the spring of the year, when the vegetative power of the plant is in the greatest activity, an effect is produced somewhat analogous to that of heading down a fruit-tree; shoots immediately spring up from the nodes (knots), the plant becomes more firmly rooted, and produces, probably, a dozen stems and ears where, but for the temporary mischief, it might have sent forth only one.

Several extraordinary facts have been recorded in connexion with the inherent power of multiplication possessed by these vegetables. Among others, Sir Kenelm Digby asserted, in 1660, that "there was in the possession of the Fathers of the Christian doctrine at Paris, a plant of barley which they at that time kept as a curiosity, and which consisted of two hundred and forty-nine stalks springing from one root or grain, and in which they counted above eighteen thousand grains or seeds of barley." In the Philosophical Transactions* it is recorded, that Mr. C. Miller of Cambridge, the son of the eminent horti culturist, sowed, on the 2nd of June, a few grains of common red wheat, one of the plants from which had tillered so much, that on the 8th of August he was enabled to divide it into eighteen plants, all of which were placed separately in the ground. In the course of September and October so many of these plants had again multiplied their stalks, that the number of plants which were separately set out to stand the winter was sixty-seven. With the first growth of the spring the tillering again went forward, so that at the end of March and beginning of April a farther division was made, and the number of plants now amounted to five hundred. Mr. Miller expressed his opinion, * Vol. lviii.