610 Additions and Correétions

crop fail that was fown at that time: nor have I-ever found any confiderable dif: ference in the times when the autumnal and the{pring crops ripened.”

Dr. Wilkinfon, of Enfield, an intelligent agricultor, recommends the cultivation of fpring-wheat, as a{pecies of grain which, although fown fo late as the r1th of May, he has found, by experience, to ripen with the autumnal wheat. He obferves that

fpring-wheat was known to the Romans asa fpecies diftin& from the common wheat.. i Oo>

and defcribed as fuch by Columella, who conceived it very acceptable to the farmer; when, on account of floods, or rains, or other caufes, he had been prevented from fow- ing the autumnal kind. And Mr. Dickfon, in his account of the Agriculture of the An- tients, took it for granted that it had never been cultivated in England, and exprefs-. eda with that the experiment might be made. He confiders it as well adapted to the wet climate of Scotland, where, owing to heavy rains, the farmers are frequently refiricted in regard to the quantity of wheat that can be fown. Common wheat, he fays, has been fown in fpring in Scotland, but has frequently failed. By Linnaus it is termed Triticum cfivum, fummer or{pring wheat.

it has four flowers in the calyx, three of which moftly bear grain: the ealyxes ftand pretty diftant from each other on both fides ofa flat fmooth receptacle. The leayes of the calyx are keel-fhaped, fmooth, and they terminate with a‘thort arifta. The glumes of the fowers are{mooth and bellying, and the outer leaf of the glumes in every calyx is terminated by a long arifta; but the three inner ones are beardlefs, The grain is rather longer and thinner than the common wheat. It is fuppofed to be a native of fome part of Tartary*.

Mr.Ray alfo, be fays,.clafies it as a diftin@ fpecies. It is generally fuppofed to have

een introduced into this country about the year 1773, under the name of Siberian wheat, Switzerland wheat, or dled de Mars. It is however mentioned by Harrifon,; an hiftorian in the time of Elizabeth, though he fays it was known only to few huf-. bandmen.

In Dofiie’s Memoirs of Agriculture and other@iconomical Arts, Vol. III. a detail, the Doctor obferves, is given of fome experimentson thecultivation of this wheat, com- municated by feveral gentlemen, to the Society of Arts. The obfervations there re- corded, he fays, agree with his own experience. Thelateft fow n, however, was the latter endofApril; the produce is ftated atthree and two quarters per acre. The experiments feem to agree in deciding, that no advantage was gained by fowing it early. Wheat fown in April ripened as early as what had been fown the beginning of March,

* Bryant’s Flora Diaetetica: