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The Mediterranean is a coarse red wheat introduced from the coasts 

 of that sea. It sometimes is very productive, and is said to withstand 

 the fly better than other wheats. It is not much in request among 

 millers, as it gives a poor return of flour. It is somewhat like Spald- 

 ing's prolific in color and quality, but the latter is a smooth wheat. 

 There is a white variety of Mediterranean. Blue stem is a productive 

 white wheat much cultivated both in the Northern and Southern 

 States. 



WHEAT SOILS. 



Wheat, above all other crops, requires a dry soil, consequently drain- 

 ing is of the utmost importance in wheat cultivation. Spring crops are 

 generally put in after the rain has disappeared, and the soil is compara- 

 tively dry ; but winter wheat must remain in the ground during the 

 heavy rains of the fall — the frosts of winter, and the alternate thaws 

 and freezings of early spring. After these come the spring rains, and the 

 overflowing water produced by the melt;ing snow. The farmer has need 

 to use great precaution in trying to defend his crop from complete ruin. 

 A great quantity of wheat is annually destroyed by allowing stagnant 

 water to remain on it during the fall or spring. 



Much Avheat is annually lost by being " heaved " up by the frost, this 

 seldom happens except in light soils, which have been exhausted by 

 frequent cropping and lack that cohesiveness and strength which the 

 wheat plant requires. Shallow plowing is also a cause of this failure. 

 Lands which have been drained and subsoiled are not subject to this 

 failure as the soil having been deepened and the stagnant water removed^ 

 the roots are enabled to strike deep and to fix the plant firmly in the 

 soil. It is a well known fact that although the majority of the roots 

 of the wheat plant ^re found near the surface, certain others endeavor 

 to penetrate deeply into the earth in order to take a sure hold of the 

 ground and to draw up the food of the plant. 



Heavy clay lands have been denominated wheat soils; yet excellent 

 samples have been raised on light sandy land. Previous to the intro- 

 duction of the turnip into the husbandry of Great Britain, stiff" clay 

 land was alone thought suitable for the production of wheat and fallow- 

 ing was the order of the day ; but the turnip has caused a revolution 

 in the British system of husbandry. Naked fallows have disappeared ; 



