365
SECT. V.
OF SOWING BROADCAST.
Of this very general mode of putting in the seed, at least ofthe culmiferous crops, both in Scotland and England, hardlyany thing requires to be said in this place. The measuredstep, regular handfuls, and artificial cast of the sower, canonly be learned by inspection, imitation, and practice. Agood and experienced sower regulates the prescribed quanti-ty of seed to the acre with wonderful precision, and distri-butes the seed over the ground with the most exact equality ,-whereas, a careless or inexperienced person sows too much inone part of a field, and too little in another; and every stepOr throw that he makes at seed-time, can be distinctly tracedat harvest, by the handfuls of seed not being sufficiently andequably scattered, and consequently leaving regular curves ofthick growing steins, with alternate comparatively bare inter-vals, at every cast of the hand. This is not only an unseem-ly and wasteful practice, but is likewise injurious, in its conse-quences, occasioning always an unequal and imperfect crop.This egregious fault is peculiarly observable and injurious, inthe subsequent vegetation of cultivated herbage, or mixedrye-grass and clovers, which require very small pinches of seedto each throw ; and, when not equably distributed, by a judi-cious twirl of the hand in throwing them out, a third or evenmore of the land is often left unprovided with plants, whilethe 'wales or curves, produced by this bad sowing, are much,overstocked with weakly plants, and the bare intervals areapt to grow up full of weeds. On ridges of 18 feet, where