1857.] Wheat and Wheat Culture. 397 



It is true of many portions of our country where wheat was for- 

 merly raised in abundance that now not a bushel is or can be pro- 

 duced, and of others where it was a remunerative crop the inhabi- 

 tants have been compelled to resort to some other means of support, 

 and large tracts are turned to common where nothing but a stinted 

 sour grass will grow, formerly yielding large crops of both wheat 

 and tobacco. Our fathers landing on the eastern coast of this con- 

 tinent and finding, as they supposed, a soil of inexhaustible fertility 

 and of boundless extent, commenced their destructive method of 

 tillage. The forests have melted before them and now the tide of 

 population has increased to such volume that like an army of locusts 

 they are threatening to lay waste every green thing, leaving a desert 

 in their track. There are perhaps at this very time more crude 

 notions, fanciful theories, and unauthorized practices adopted in the 

 cultivation of the soil than in any other pursuit. The first great 

 effort is and has been in all cases to secure the largest present return 

 with the least possible expense, entirely reckless of the future, under 

 the specious and loiched plea, there is plenty more land west when 

 this shall be exhausted ; and since railroads have been inaugurated 

 it has indefinitely increased the capability as well as the inclination 

 to augment this vandal waste. 



Science ! There is no such thing in our Agriculture ! naught but 

 uncertain, indefinite practice — mere tradition. The father planted 

 or sowed in such a way, and the son implicitly follows. We will 

 review a few of the various notions in relation to wheat and wheat 

 culture in our country, and endeavor to give some plain directions 

 as we proceed. 



If the kind of wheat is the subject one prefers the old red chaff, 

 bearded or bald as the case may be ; another the blue stem ; another 

 the Mediterranean ; another the white Genessee, etc. Why is this? 

 Often simply because they have happened to succeed better with 

 this or that kind the first time sowing, than with some other and it 

 may be far better variety. True some soils suit certain kinds of 

 wheat better than others, but this is not the more common criterion 

 for the choice made. In most cases the reasons assigned are capri- 

 cious and unfounded, and resolvable into ignorance of the proper 

 qualities both of grain and soil, and here no blame should be attached 

 to any one more than to him who knowing better, treats agriculture 

 as a very simple art when in reality it is one of the most profound 

 of sciences. That our farmers may have full scope for their choice 



