THE WHEAT CULTURIST. 123 



all the snow during the winter months ; and also the 

 liberal amount of excellent fertilizing material in the 

 form of wood ashes. Allusion is made to these things 

 more extensively in another part of this work. The 

 main point to which I desire to direct the attention of 

 wheat-growers is, the most favorable condition of the 

 soil, and other circumstances, in order to produce a 

 satisfactory crop of grain. Necessity required our an- 

 cestors to adopt the mode of cultivation to which allu- 

 sion has been made. They might not have perceived 

 at that time that those circumstances and conditions of 

 seed-bed, and everything else, were more favorable than 

 any other for the production of a bountiful crop of 

 grain. But they see it now. The suggestion may 

 never have occurred to them that it made any difference 

 wli ether the best soil was kept at the surface or turned 

 half a foot beneath it. But successful wheat-growers 

 have learned that it does make all the difference in the 

 world, whether the best soil is kept at the surface, when 

 a crop of winter grain is to be raised. Read volume 

 second, page 125, of Young Farmer's Manual. 



Let this be the key-note, then, to successful wheat cul- 

 ture : to keep the best soil, or a thin, mellow stratum 

 of rich soil, at the surface. Then make the subsoil as 

 deep and porous by pulverization as practicable, by the 

 use of the subsoil plough. 



How FREEZING AND THAWING OF THE SOIL AFFECTS 

 GROWING WHEAT. 



Practical farmers understand very well, how freezing 

 and thawing of the surface of the soil affects the wheat 

 plant. Doubtless every observing farmer who reads 



