THE WHEAT CULTUKIST. 15 



tainty. But now, many of our best farmers have met 

 with so many serious failures and disappointments in 

 their wheat crops, that they are sometimes exceedingly 

 loath to try again. 



The true causes of failure have not, as yet, been satis- 

 factorily unravelled. It is a remarkable fact, that the 

 product of good wheat has riot only diminished, but the 

 quality of the grain has greatly deteriorated. Then, 

 it was a common occurrence to see an entire crop of 

 wheat as fair and plump as the best qualities of seed 

 grain at the present day. Scientific farmers and in- 

 telligent laborers have been anxiously inquiring after 

 the cause; and one has assigned the ravages of the 

 midge as the main cause, while others have attributed 

 the failure of crops to the increased severity of climatic in- 

 fluences following the removing of our extensive forests. 

 Besides these causes, others have assigned another, to 

 them, plausible cause, which is the diminution of those 

 elements of fertility in the soil which are essential to the 

 formation of the grain. But all these reasons have been 

 satisfactorily refuted, in most instances, when taken 

 alone. We must, therefore, attribute the failure not 

 to any single cause but to a variety of such causes as 

 have been mentioned, operating together to the great 

 injury of the wheat crop. There is one observation in 

 which I think every intelligent farmer will coincide with 

 me, which is this : If a piece of new land be sowed 

 with choice seed wheat, and a dense forest protects the 

 field during the winter, and if the midge do not injure 

 the growing crop, the yield will be about as bountiful 

 as crops were forty years ago. These hints suggest 

 what is required in order to succeed in raising a bountir 

 ful crop of wheat. 



