ployment so hurtful to themselves. I have been led to take so much notice of this, from an anxiety to know how the bill is working in other districts, and from a wish that others may be induced to compare notes.

The river-fishings have been falling off for ten years past. The Tweed, on an average, nearly one-half, compared with the preceding ten years. The Tay has also suffered much, but not in the same proportion. By comparing observations, it might be seen how far it is in the power of man to increase the salmonfishery, and how far it is possible, by an act of legislation, to improve this important branch of our country's produce.

PERTH, Dec. 16. 1831.

METHOD OF PRESERVING CORN IN SHEAVES, AS PRACTISED IN SWEDEN. By Mr GEORGE STEPHENS, Edinburgh.

THE

HE agriculturist is frequently subjected to serious inconveniences and losses in the preservation of his crop in autumn, from the unsettled state of the weather. After he has cut down his crop of grain, and placed it in stooks, it too often happens that the wet weather sets in and almost disappoints his fullest expectations of having the produce of his fields safely lodged in the barn-yard. The grain, from thus standing for some time exposed to moisture, will become sprouted and very much deteriorated in value, and the straw will be rendered greatly less valuable; besides, the young grass where the stooks stood will be much destroyed if not altogether killed. Indeed, the injury that a wet season occasions is so severely felt by the farmer in all sheltered places, that from the loss by his damaged crop alone he must frequently have little means of being able to meet the demands of his landlord for rent. Many inventions have been tried in different parts of the country to obviate this evil, but they have either been found too troublesome or too expensive to be brought into general use in farming operations.

The simplest method, it appears to me, for securing the crop after cutting it down, from being damaged by standing long in stooks on the ground, is that universally practised by the agri

culturists in the woody parts of Sweden and Norway, and which never fails in completely protecting at least nine-tenths of the grain from growing in the sheaf, as well as the straw, from any serious injury.

In those districts, every farmer provides as many "sädes stör," corn-stakes (i. e. stakes for drying the grain on), as will be necessary for the quantity of his growing crop. They are generally made of the young white pines, 8 feet long, about 1 inch in diameter at the top, and 4 inches at the bottom. The upper end is pointed, to admit the sheaf passing easily down over it, and the lower end is likewise pointed to facilitate its being fixed in the ground.

a

When a field of grain is ready for the sickle, the stakes are conveyed to the spot, and, as the reapers proceed with their work, the stakes are put up in rows behind them, in the same manner, and at the same distance from each other, as is common in stooking the crop. A man, with the assistance of an iron crow, or spit, will set up five hundred of these in day. The next operation is to put the sheaves on the stakes. This is This is performed by raising the first sheaf up to the top of the stake, and passing it with the root-ends downwards to the ground, the stake being kept as near as possible in the middle of the sheaf; the sheaf thus stands perpendicular and round the stake. The second sheaf is fixed on the stake in an inclined position with the grainend sloping a little downwards, the stake passing through the sheaf at the band in a transverse manner, and in that position it is pressed down to the first sheaf, and thus forms a covering to it. All the other sheaves are threaded on the stake in a similar way as the sheaf last put on, keeping them all one above another, with the root-ends facing the south-west, to receive as much of the sunshine as possible, on account of the greater quantity of grassy substance which they contain at the other end. As each sheaf thus acts as a complete covering to the one beneath it, and as there is only one which can touch the ground, rain cannot at any time penetrate through them, and it is very rare that any single heads of grain on a stake are injured.

I have witnessed these operations performed with as much expedition as actually attends the common way of setting the crop in the fields in stooks. The figure represents the stake with the

sheaves put on it. The number of sheaves put upon each stake is generally fifteen or sixteen.

The advantages arising from the above simple manner of protecting the crop are many, exclusive of the consideration of the grain and straw. being preserved in a wholesome state. The farmer by it is enabled to commence reaping early in the morning while the dew is yet on the grain. Partial rainy weather does not prevent his operations; he can employ all his people in cutting down the crop before carrying home any part of it; and when he does commence carrying it home, not the least particle is shaken out; for, instead of throwing a single sheaf into the corn-cart, or waggon, at a time (by which much grain is frequently lost), the stake, with the whole of its contents, is taken up, put into the cart and carried to the barn-yard. By this means, too,

the young grass is preserved, and the farmer will know from the number of stakes alone employed in each field or in each different kind of grain, how many bushels he may expect per acre before it is thrashed.

When the crop is all carried home, the stakes are collected and laid aside to be similarly applied the succeeding year; and when they are carefully kept during the period they are not in use, they will last twenty or thirty years. I have known many farmers residing in the plains of Sweden, where wood is extremely scarce, who, rather than be without such preservatives of their crop, choose to purchase them at a dear rate, and transport them thirty or forty miles to their possessions. Indeed the practice of staking the grain is there so general, and so beneficial, that the number of stakes used is often taken notice of when a lot of land is offered for sale.

I recommended the above method a few years ago to the late Duke of Atholl at Dunkeld, and having staked a quantity of barley, his Grace expressed himself highly pleased with the method.

Every country has its own peculiar necessities to overcome, and the necessity, as well as utility, of placing the grain on stakes to dry, is as applicable to many districts of this country as it is to Sweden; for I presume it is well known that the state of the weather varies even more with us here than it really does there. The only serious difficulty which this method may have to contend with in this country, is the scarcity of wood in some places to form into stakes; but when we consider the large extent of young plantations scattered over almost every district,-the advantages which would result to the plantations themselves by a judicious thinning; and, besides, that a great part of these is larch, and that young peeled larches are admirably well adapted for this purpose, and in many instances may be purchased at a very moderate price, this difficulty will in no inconsiderable degree be removed.

EDINBURGH, January 1832.

ON WHEAT NOT LIABLE TO THE ATTACKS OF THE WHEAT-FLY.

By Mr GORRIE, Annat Garden.

(To the Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture.) In the last Number of your Journal, I observe a communication from your intelligent correspondent Mr Shirreff, on that everlasting subject "The Wheat-Fly." I find that this gentleman will not attend to my suggestions in No. 8., nor become undertaker for burying the common enemy. Since writing the communication to which he refers at page 503, I tried several experiments in the following spring, to prove the powers of the insects of rising to the surface, and also the influence of temperature in bringing them into the fly state, at an early period of the With these views I filled several crystal rummers with mould, about six inches deep: in one I placed sixty maggots, within an eighth of an inch of the bottom; in another sixty mag

season.

gots, within three inches of the top; and in a third the same number, within less than an inch of the surface;-the mould I kept regularly in a moist state: another rummer was filled with mould, and sixty maggots placed within an inch of the surface, which I proposed should be kept dry. All the rummers were carefully covered with perforated paper to admit air, and to prevent the escape of any flies that might appear, and were plunged in a moderately warm hot-bed about the middle of April; the temperature being regulated as near 60° Fahrenheit as possible. By the beginning of May I had a full crop of flies from the moist mould, where the maggots were placed within an inch of the surface; on the 9th, five flies had made their appearance where the maggots had been placed three inches below the surface; but in the rummer where the mould was kept dry, only one appeared, and that about the beginning of May. Those buried near the bottom never appeared, although the mould over them was of an open texture. I therefore conclude, that burying with a skim-coultered plough, as formerly suggested, would diminish their numbers, if the operation, and subsequent early summer ploughings, were not performed in a bungling manner, and if the operations were gone into, at the same time, over a whole district. But this is perhaps expecting too much, and a variety of wheat not subject to the fly may have a better chance of success amongst such farmers as "canna be fashed;" and, with this view, I forward to you two ears of that variety of wheat which has hitherto been proof against the attacks of the fly in the Carse of Gowrie. I may mention that the ears sent are of the same variety as those which were transmitted, in 1828, to London, by Sir John Sinclair, to a corn-factor, to obtain their name, and for which the Rivet Wheat, a different variety, was sent to this country. I had the pleasure of a visit from Mr Becket, last autumn, the gentleman to whom it was sent by Sir John Sinclair, and, on pointing out to him the variety of which I now send you a specimen, he informed me, that after showing the ears which he received to several corn-factors in London, they could not obtain its name, but considered the rivet wheat as nearest in resemblance, and therefore most likely to possess the anti-fly qualities. In 1829 I had a fall of the wheat now sent, growing in the centre of a field of common wheat, which came in the ear