1857.] Wheat and Wheat Culture. 401 



be prepared thus and the seed be properly sowed we will insure in all 

 ordinary seasons a good crop. In cut No. 3 you have clearly pre- 

 sented the situation and progressive growth of your plants when the 

 wheat is lodged at the surface, as likewise when placed at the depth 

 of from three to six inches, the uniform depth recommended by all 

 our standard works on this subject. A different philosophy has 

 sprung up within a few years, and we recently saw one work recom- 

 mending from an inch and a half to two inches. (This is better.) 



If the soil was free to the depth of five feet Figs. 1, 2, 3 and 4 would 

 represent the depth and form of the fibrous roots, the descending axis, 

 equal to the ascending. Fig. 5 shows the condition of a plant sowed to 

 the depth of from three to six inches, though at six we would say in 

 all clay soils wheat will not vegetate. And here we would rectify a 

 very common error : when wheat is plowed or harrowed in, it for the 

 most part does not exceed three inches, and if so it never sees the 

 light of day. Fig. 6 shows the condition ordinarily in spring of the 

 grains that have been sowed deepest ; consequently the deeper you 

 sow your grain, all other things being equal, the worse it will be 

 killed. " Oh, no," says one of our learned savans, "for then it has 

 two sets of roots instead of one." Not knowing that the plant, to 

 escape the prison in which it had been placed and to find its owa 

 proper elements, reaches its plumule to the surface, in accordance 

 with Fig. 5, and then forced by circumstances throws out adventi- 

 tious roots, and thereby becomes independent of its parent seed, when 

 all the roots developed therefrom become carious and slough ofl". 

 Here in an enfeebled condition it emerges, develops a few roots, a 

 spindling stalk and a small and often illy-filled head, and this consti- 

 tutes your crop. Hence the necessity of from one and a half to four 

 bushels of grain, when if properly sowed one bushel is far better. 

 What an immense saving ! 



"All this is very good but it will not do in a dri/ season !" 

 Place your eye on cut No. 1 and see the situation in a dry season 

 of land plowed as ordinarily. Where is your moisture three inches 

 or two inches, or one inch below the surface? The soil is as hard as a 

 brick-bat ; if you have any moisture it must be at the surface arising 

 from dew. Then you of course should place your grain at or near 

 the surface. But you never know what the season is to be ; accord- 

 ing to our method it is best placed at the surface under all the cir- 

 cumstances of wet or dry seasons, deep or shallow plowing, for good. 

 VOL. II., IX. — 26. 



