also planted some according to Stephen's instructions, who said
three grains in a hole would produce the most profitable return. I
also planted some two grains in a hole. I sowed the grain at the
end of last September, on bad land, over an old quarry, and except
some stiff clay at the bottom of it, there was nothing in it good
for wheat. The other day I counted the stalks of all three. On Mr.
Stephen's plan of three grains in a hole, there were eighteen
stalks; with two grains in a hole, there was about the same number;
but with one seed in a hole, the lowest number of stalks was
sixteen, and the highest twenty-two. I planted only about half an
acre as a trial, and when I left home a few days since, it looked as
much like eight quarters (sixty-four bushels) to the acre as any I
have seen. The ears are something enormous. I would certainly
recommend every farmer to make his own experiments, for if it
succeeds, it will prove a great economy of seed; and drills to
distribute it fairly are to be had."

Truly one of Hallett's wheat ears might displace the old cornucopia
in that picture of happy abundance so familiar to old and young.
Here are twenty ears from one seed, containing probably a thousand
grains. The increase of a thousand-fold, or half that ratio, is
prodigious, having nothing to equal it in the vegetable world that
we know of. If one bushel of seed wheat could be so distributed by
a drill as to produce 500 or 250 bushels at the harvest, certainly
the staff of life would be greatly cheapened to the millions who
lean upon it alone for subsistence.

From Oundle I walked the next day to Stamford, a good, solid, old
English town, sitting on the corners of three counties, and on three
layers of history, Saxon, Dane and Norman. The first object of