INCREASED CROP PRODUCTION 103 



on poor ones. Much information of this sort is 

 current among farmers, but it needs collecting and 

 sifting. Among the wheats, Rivett's is eminently 

 suitable to heaVy land, though it must be sow^i early, 

 and Little Joss appears to prefer light land. 



One of the great problems for the present is to 

 make a careful study of the environmental require- 

 ments of the well-defined types of varieties, and one 

 of the great hopes for the future is that new varieties 

 may be found better suited to the various local con- 

 ditions than those at present in common cultivation. 



Although there seems no hope of controlling cli- 

 matic factors, it is possible somewhat to mitigate their 

 effects by modifying the environment. There are four 

 general ways in which this can be done. The first 

 process that must be carried out before anything else 

 can succeed is drainage, to remove the excess of water 

 and to make the soil drier and therefore warmer. In 

 the main drainage problems are engineering, and 

 lie outside our province. The old plan that worked 

 exceedingly well in the 'sixties the days of cheap 

 farm labour consisted in taking levels very carefully, 

 then digging trenches of such depth that a proper 

 outflow could be obtained, and, finally, laying porous 

 drain-pipes in the trenches to carry away the water. 

 This is still the most effective method, but it is costly, 

 and is being replaced by another and cheaper method, 

 known as mole drainage, in which a steel shell-like 

 implement is pushed through the soil so as to make 

 a tunnel 2j inches wide. Contrary to what might be 

 expected, the tunnel does not fall in, but persists for 

 ten to fifteen years or more. 



After this comes liming or chalking, one of the 

 oldest of agricultural processes, and even now only 

 in part understood. Liming has an obvious effect in 

 neutralizing acidity, in improving texture and floe- 



