14 THE WHEAT CULTTTRIST. 



the plants into a rapid fructification before they have 

 had time to concoct their juices. The growth in stalk, 

 vine, and foliage is too much for the composition ot 

 fruit." 



It is stated by respectable authority, that wheat raised 

 in Virginia is better for making white bread than 

 northern grain. The wheat grown in Missouri and in 

 California yields a flour that commands a higher price 

 in market than the northern wheat. The flour of the 

 California wheat is said to yield a larger percentage of 

 gluten than wheat that was grown in latitudes north 

 of the latitude of California. 



I pen these suggestions simply for the purpose of 

 awakening in young farmers a spirit of investigation, 

 with a view of encouraging them to take critical obser- 

 vations on every subject connected with the cultivation 

 of this valuable grain. 



Growing Wheat Then and Now. 



The question is asked with no little solicitude, why 

 farmers cannot raise as good wheat at the present time 

 as they did fifty years ago ? Then, a crop of wheat was 

 as sure as a crop of Indian corn ; and, in numerous in- 

 stances, three bountiful crops of wheat were taken from 

 the same field, in three successive seasons. I well re- 

 member, when a small lad, that my father raised three 

 crops of wheat in one of his fields in three successive 

 years ; and the third year, the growing grain seemed 

 heavier than either of the preceding crops. Then, with 

 miserable cultivation, and only a small quantity of 

 inferior barnyard manure, a farmer could count upon a 

 heavy crop of first-rate wheat, with almost absolute cer- 



