182 The Roots of the Wheat Plant. 



Winter wheat sends out new roots and fresh fibrils in spring-, 

 and at the same time tillers and forms tufts, each shoot of which 

 also roots like the central blade, and all this second growth 

 occurs just when spring wheat is coming up. 



In spring wheat there is little disposition to tiller, as the growth 

 is quick the root has no period of rest, and therefore its fibres and 

 fibrils are developed regularly, and have no fresh impulse of 

 growth like wheat that has stood the cold of winter, and is pre- 

 pared to meet the milder season of spring, with an invigorated 

 constitution and appetite that requires new roots and fresh root- 

 lets to supply. It is on this account that winter wheat can be 

 transplanted in spring with but little check to its growth, and 

 even the tufts can be divided into slips, which is indeed a useful 

 mode of augmenting our crop in experiments upon new and rare 

 varieties. 



In April of last year, 1855, I transplanted a plot of nursery 

 wheat from a field on the farm to one of my experimental plots : 

 it was put in rows eight inches apart and about two or three 

 inches in the rows ; the result of the experiment was, that scarcely 

 a plant failed, the straw was good, and the ears of corn of unusual 

 length, and besides, this plot became ripe not later than that in 

 the field from which my plants were taken. 



Another experiment with wheat may be here detailed as tending 

 to show the general hardy nature of the wheat-plant. In October, 

 1849, I planted a small patch of wheat, which I kept constantly 

 cut down during the summer of 1850, so as to prevent the forma- 

 tion of flowers: it stood the winter of 1850-1, and became a 

 tolerable crop in the summer of 1851. 



Now although the difference in growth of spring and winter 

 wheat is merely one of degree, it yet entails upon the farmer a 

 different mode of treatment. Winter wheat may be sown thin, 

 especially if provision has not to be made against a superabund- 

 ance of insects, such as wire-worms, slugs and the like. 



A Aveak plant or a thin crop can often be repaired in their 

 effects, by adopting processes to cause tillering, such as mowing, 

 eating off with sheep, treading, and rolling. A new growth 

 and fresh vigour can be imparted by special manures, to be 

 presently more especially adverted to. And even transplanta- 

 tion may be had recourse to where it would pay for the trouble 

 and expense. 



With respect to sprhif/ sown icheat, as each seed only brings 

 forth three or four ears, it should be planted thicker in the row 

 and drill to insure its covering the ground, than in winter wheat; 

 a treatment required in part, to prevent the ill effects of drought 

 which is not unlikely to supervene. And as the soil has not a 



