THE WHEAT CULTURIST. 81 



solved to emigrate to America, and to engage in agri- 

 cultural pursuits. He brought with him a tierce of 

 seed Italian wheat to the town of Florence, Oneida 

 County, New York, where it was nsed for seed with 

 excellent satisfaction for a few years ; but in conse- 

 quence of injudicious management in saving seed grain 

 from year to year, this variety failed to yield satisfac- 

 tory crops." 



Some allowance must be made for an enthusiastic 

 writer of the foregoing account of Italian wheat, as every 

 skilful farmer knows that no variety of wheat that ever 

 had an existence would yield forty or fifty bushels of 

 grain on poor ground. This variety failed entirely in 

 some parts of the country, from no other cause than the 

 one alluded to — negligence in saving the seed from year 

 ^ to year. With injudicious management on the part of 

 farmers in saving seed grain, the best variety of grain 

 that was ever known would soon run out. 



Improvement of Wheat. 



A good variety of wheat is capable of being greatly 

 improved, provided the soil is of the right character, 

 and very fertile in wheat-producing elements. When a 

 man sows a small plot of wheat in his garden which has 

 always been abundantly manured, so that the soil is 

 well fattened with such fertilizing material as will make 

 long heads and full and plump kernels, he is utterly sur- 

 prised at the success of his experiment in a limited way. 

 He concludes that his unprecedented success must be 

 attributed to the variety, when almost everything is or 

 was attributable to superior cultivation and fertilization 



of the soil. A vast deal depends on having a variety, 



4* 



