OF SCOTLAND.

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vest, is dangerously postponed. Drilled grain crops, fromwanting an equable and general support among their ownstems, owing to the distance between the rows, are likewisemore liable than those sown broadcast, to suffer injury fromheavy rains and strong blasts of wind, by which their stemsare^apt to be broken down irregularly, and interlaced amongeach other, which is technically denominated knee-shackled.Owing to the same circumstances, they are more liable to beroot-fallen or wind-waved; their coronal roots becoming dis-engaged from the soil by a circular motion or waving, fromthe irregular and changing impulse of the wind, a circum-stance which seldom or never happens to a regular close crop.

Upon the whole it is the general opinion of judicious andexperienced Scotch husbandmen, after considerable expe-rience in drilling, that more abundant crops of wheat, rye,barley, and oats may be raised in the ordinary broad-castmanner of sowing, than by the drill machine: In regard toautumn or winter sown wheat, the doctrine is almost univer-sally'admitted *. It is contended, however, by other intelli-gent farmers, that spring sown crops, whether wheat, barley,or oats, are more likely to be productive on light soils, whereannual weeds abound, when cultivated in drills, than whensown broadcast. It is questionable indeed, whether lands,which, from a long continuance of slovenly management, havebecome overrun with annual weeds, can be otherwise clearedof them, or the soil restored to its full productive powers, be-fore these annual weeds are extirpated. By the adoption ofthe drill husbandry, the operation of hand weeding can beapplied to such lands much easier, and that process may begreatly assisted by the more economical process of hand-hoe-ing, and even by means of the horse-hoe. Within these li-

* Some, however, do contend, that wheat drilled in autumn or winter willsucceed as well as in spring. The greatest difficulty is in drying the pickledseed to run through the machine. It can certainly be laid at a more equal depthin the drilled than broadcast husbandry; and with a reasonable number of pro-per machines, seed may be as fast put in by the drill as by the hand.

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