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clays often produce good crops, both as to yield and as to quality, 
and on the other hand the lighter soils may yield a good quality. It 
is simply smaller in quantity. The best crops, however, come from 
moderately stiff soils, but any fertile soil will produce good wheat 
if all the other conditions are favorable. 
Geologically considered, the most of the wheat grown in the United 
States is over the region of drift, but much of the wheat soil has been 
so modified by other geological influences that the geological factor 
is not an important one, the essential character which gives it its 
value being as largely physical as chemical. Good wheat lands 
agree in this. that they are sufficiently rolling for natural drainage; 
are at the same time level enough to admit of the use of field ma- 
chinery, and are easily tilled, admitting the use of ght field imple- 
ments in their tillage and thus allowing of a very large production 
of grain in proportion to the amount of human labor employed. 
The facility of putting in the crop and harvesting it is really the 
controlling condition in many localities, so much so that the very 
important wheat regions, where some of the most speculative farm- 
ing of the United States is practiced, are in regions where the cli- 
matic conditions are such that the average yield one year with 
another may be as low as 10 bushels per acre. In such cases this 
low average is usually due to climatic reasons rather than to a lack 
of fertility in the soil, and in favorable years the yield may be very 
much larger. The ease of cultivation, the facilities for gathering the 
crop, and its good qualities in favorable years incite to the hope that 
all years will be favorable, and in good years the profits are large. 
In color, in the amount of clay contained, in physical and in chemical 
characters, there is much difference in the different soils of the coun- 
try. Some contain much vegetable matter, others but little. We 
may say that the soils of all the more important wheat regions (so 
far as we have chemical analyses) are rich in lime, as well as in those 
other elements of fertility, such as potash and phosphoric acid, which 
are necessary for a good crop and a good quality of grain. 
For commercial as well as for agricultural success climate is an 
all-controlling condition. Wheat is normally a winter annual. For 
a good crop the seed must germinate and the young plant grow dur- 
ing the cool and moist part of the year, which season determines the 
ultimate density of growth on the ground and, consequently, mostly 
determines the yield. Wheat ripens in the warmer and drier parts 
of the year, which season more largely determines the quality, plump- 
ness, and color of the grain. In climates with winters so cold that all 
vegetable growth is suspended we have two distinct classes of 
varieties, known, respectively, as spring and winter wheats. Through- 
out all the Northern States, from ocean to ocean, and to some extent 
in those Southern States which lie east of the Great Plains, these two 
classes of varieties are very distinct as regards their cultivation and 
to some extent also as regards their characters. In California and 
in similar climates, as in Egypt, this distinction does not exist in 
respect to their cultivation, although the varieties partake more of 
the character of winter wheats than of spring, both in their mode of 
growth and in the character of the flour made from them. 
But in all climates and whatever variety may be grown, the crop 
must be sown and have its early growth in a cool part of the year. 
