PREFACE. 



My apology for writing a book on wheat is simply my 

 desire to aid farmers in their efforts to produce more bountiful 

 crops of this kind of grain. For more than forty successive 

 years, I have had more or less practical experience in the cul- 

 ture of wheat. I have studied the habit of the wheat plant 

 far more, perhaps, than the great mass of farmers have con- 

 sidered the subject to be of any practical importance. I have 

 investigated the failures of the wheat crop, and endeavored to 

 discover efficient and practical remedies. 



I have excluded from the book every subject that might 

 leave the ambitious young farmer in doubt ; and have simply 

 made a record of my own practical experience. There are 

 scores of successful farmers who know most of what is con- 

 tained in these pages. But the great mass of young farmers, 

 who are just taking the places of their fathers, have yet to 

 learn the important fundamental principles laid down in this 

 work. Thousands upon thousands of active men, who know 

 little about the practical part of raising wheat, will find in the 

 following pages exactly the information they must have, before 

 they can raise a bountiful crop of this kind of grain. 



Some of the articles were prepared originally by my pen, 

 for the Independent, New York Observer, New York Times, and 

 American Agriculturist. But after publication in those papers, 

 they were rewritten and revised. I herewith desire to give 

 honorable and honest credit for anything that has appeared in 

 those periodicals and in this book also. 



With a few exceptions, the illustrations were originally pre- 

 pared by myself for this book. The use of cuts on pages 1 1 , 

 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 39, 99, 406, 407, 408, 415, has been kindly 



