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earth, and in this way has been made a food properly i^repared for the 

 wheat plant. The earth through its influence has been assimilated to 

 the humus which was originally so productive of wheat. If the land 

 under this treatment tends to become too mellow, let timothy be sown 

 in the fall with the wheat, at the rate of one bushel to the acre, and clover 

 in the spring at the rate of one bushel upon five acres. If no timothy 

 be sown in the fall, the wheat will be greatly benefited by harrowing 

 it with a sharp harrow in the spring. No fear need be entertained of 

 iajuriug the roots, and the ground will be freshened and well prepared 

 for receiving the clover-seed. When it is sown, a roller passed over the 

 ground will fix the clover-seed for immediate germination, and level tlie 

 surface for the reaper and mower ; and I may add, that the habitual use 

 of a roller upon cultivated land, whether in corn, oats, wheat, barley, or 

 clover, has a tendency to destroy the larvjB and pupse of insects to an 

 extent rendering them harmless, while all these crops are benefited by it. 



In the Southern States there is no reason v.'hy cotton or tobacco 

 may not be substituted in this course for wheat. It may be suggested 

 that, when either of these crops is cultivated the last time, the land may 

 be sown with clover, which by the following June will grow to its full 

 size, and may then be plowed under. If the ground be again plowed 

 in September, it will be in the best condition for a wheat crop, or, what 

 is better, if the clover be left until the following spriug, when it shall have 

 attained its full growth, the land will be in a condition to grow corn, 

 cotton, tobacco, or anything else. This system, pursued for a series of 

 years, may be relied upon for the x)roduction of crops perpetually, always 

 using barn-yard manure upon the clover sod, and planting with corn. 

 It is the enriching influence of clover roots and the rotation of crops 

 which produce the result. Let it be remembered that there is little 

 reliance to be i^laced upon the eflect of a green crop turned under by 

 the plow ; ninety per cent, of it is water. It is the full-grown root of 

 clover that enriches the soil. 



Care in the selection of seed wheat is of the A^ery first importance. 

 Discard all idea of mixing ingredients with it to destroy smut, rust, 

 mildew, or anything else; for, beyond the mere operation of washing or 

 the manure they may furnish, it is questionable whether they produce 

 any good eflect. Smut is a fuugoid growth from a diseased grain of 

 wheat, which by contagion will be communicated to the mass, but from 

 which the mass may be purified by washing with soap and salt water. 

 Mildew is a parasitic fungus upon the straw, by which the seed is never 

 affected otherwise than by the destruction of the straAv and consequent 

 shrinking of the wheat in the head. The midge, Hessian fly, and weevil, 

 are insects the consideration of which should be introduced in any dis- 

 cussion oil the subject of the cultivation of wheat. The midge is a small 

 winged insect, the larva of which is an orange-colored maggot, found 

 between the skin and chaff of the grain of wheat while it is in its 

 milky state. The egg is deposited between the chaft' and the kernel, 

 and is so minute as not to be discoverable by the naked eye. The larva 

 extracts the milk and destroys the grain. The Hessian fly deposits its 

 egg, which is about the size of the smallest grain of clover-seed, upon 

 the blade of wheat, from which it falls into the crotch of the plant or 

 upon the ground; if upon the latter it perishes, and if upon the former 

 it is hatched into a larva resembling a flaxseed. As it grows, it lives 

 upon the sap of the straw, and destroys it at its point of contact, which 

 is usually in the first joint, so that it is broken ofl' by the wind or its 

 own weight. The weevil is a hard-shelled beetle, which preys only 

 upon grain after it is matured. The remedy for smut and mildew is 



