ABOUT FRUITS, FLOWERS AND FARMING. 129 



apt to heave out in winter ; it saves the wheat from drought, it 

 gives the nourishment of twice the quantity of soil to the crop. 



Five acres may become ten by enlarging the soil doion- 

 ward. These remarks are desultory ; and, while we intend 

 to continue writing on the subject, we say to such as may 

 be getting ready for the wheat-sowing, plow deeply and 

 thoroughly unlike corn, wheat can only be plowed once, 

 and that at the beginning. It should be thoroughly done, 

 then, once for all. 



WHEAT LANDS ought to be so farmed as to grow better 

 from year to year ; certainly, they ought to hold their own. 

 Lands may be kept in heart by the adoption of a rotation 

 suited to each particular soil ; or, if frequent wheat crops are 

 raised, by fallows or manuring. It is a fact that in this 

 neighborhood farms in the hands of careful men are yielding 

 better crops of wheat every year ; while multitudes of far 

 mers think themselves fortunate in twelve or fifteen bushels 

 to the acre, there is another class who expect twenty-five or 

 thirty bushels, and in good seasons get it. This is encou 

 raging. As our lands get older we may look for yet better 

 things. Some farmers put in from 100 to 800, and even 

 1,000 acres of wheat. The native qualities of the soil are 

 relied upon for the crop. To manure or clover such a body 

 of land is impossible with any capital at the command of its 

 owners. But with us, each owner of a quarter section puts 

 in from ten to twenty acres, and it lies within his means to 

 dress this quantity of land to a high degree. 



SOILS FIT FOR WHEAT. A vegetable mold cannot yield 

 wheat, because it does not contain, and therefore cannot 

 afford to the crop, silicate of potash, or phosphate of mag 

 nesia; the first of which gives strength to the stem, and 

 the second of which is necessary to the grain. On such soil 

 wheat may grow as a grass, but not as a grain. 



A mere sand will not yield wheat ; because wheat re 

 quires, and such soils do not contain, soda, magnesia, and 

 especially silicate of potash. 



