Some people labour to effect their seed-sowing on a particular day or week without other calculations, and are quite satisfied that all is well if the seed is in the ground at the precise time which they have appointed for the purpose. Now, any rule as to _time_ alone is especially absurd in our variable climate; even in the midland counties of England, where extreme vicissitudes of weather are less frequent, it is injudicious to fix any certain rule as to the exact time for committing the various sorts of corn to the ground. Experience has taught those who have considered the subject, that it is unwise to _force a season_. For example, the middle of October is considered in Buckinghamshire to be the best time for sowing wheat; but the earth at that time may be so dry (and actually was so in the past year) as to be more fit for barley than wheat; or it may then be so wet as to be equally unfit for the reception of the seed. In either case the judicious farmer waits for the correct season, which experience has taught will have a corresponding harvest. After a wet cold summer the light dry soils of that county being firm and consolidated, it is perhaps desirable to sow wheat at a very early period of the autumn; and after a hot dry summer, when the land is in a contrary condition, it would be better to wait for the autumnal rains to obtain a firm seed bed. Again, with barley on the same soil, the first of April is considered a good time; but the farmer who should persist in sowing just then in spite of the weather or the unprepared state of the land, would be a fool indeed, and would discover the effect of his blunder in the shortness of his crop. It is true that the superstitions of the ancients which so ridiculously influenced the affairs of husbandry, have long since ceased to be regarded. No one in these days would think it expedient to steep his seed in the juice of wild cucumbers; nor to bring it into contact with the horns of an ox, for luck; nor to cover the seed basket with the skin of a hyæna, to keep off by its odour the attacks of vermin; nor to sprinkle corn before sowing with water in which stags’ horns or crabs had been immersed; nor to mix powdered cypress leaves through the seed--though pickles and solutions for destroying insects are not to be despised. Neither are the planetary influences now much respected; yet there are many foolish old farmers who attach no little importance to the state of the moon, the dark nights in November being a favourite season, without the really important considerations that the earth and the weather are in an appropriate and congenial state.