THE WHEAT CULTURIST. 55 



tillered to such an extent, that the number of single 

 plants put out before winter was sixty-seven. The next 

 spring all these plants continued to tiller, until the num- 

 ber of growing stalks, from one kernel, amounted to five 

 hundred. The soil was in an excellent state of fertility ; 

 and the product of grain reported from a single kernel, 

 was so large, that I cannot receive it with sufficient con- 

 fidence to enable me to record the result in this place. 

 What I have penned will be amply sufficient to show the 

 practical farmer, when he has only one or a dozen ker- 

 nels of wheat, how he may obtain more than a thou- 

 sand-fold in one season. By understanding the habit of 

 the wheat plant, when producing a new variety of grain, 

 a farmer may accomplish in one year, more than he 

 would be able to do in three seasons, if he be ignorant 

 of this peculiar habit of the growing plant. 



How the Stems are Formed. 



Trees are exogenous plants ; but wheat and the other 

 grains are endogenous. Trees and some other kinds of 

 plants increase in height by the growth of the outside 

 and the outer extremity of branches. But the stems of 

 wheat increase in height by lengthening the cylindrical 

 portions between the joints. The straw, or tubular stem, 

 is formed nearly the way that lead pipe is made. The 

 melted lead is forced out of an issue at the under side 

 of a huge iron mould, by means of a piston fitting air- 

 tight, which is forced down upon the lead equal to a 

 superincumbent pressure of one thousand tons ! The 

 tube issues from the mould slowly, so that the metal has 

 sufficient time to cool before it leaves the mould. 

 Within a space of six inches in the mould, the lead pipe 



