156 THE WHEAT CULTUKIST. 



there being too much moisture to have the land work 

 well. It may be fine and do admirably for a day or 

 two, when a wet day prevents going on with the job ; 

 and a second day is lost, while the soil is drying. A 

 great deal of delay might be avoided by preparing in 

 the autumn, and attending to the watercourses, if it is 

 low land, so that no water lies upon the soil ; when it 

 will be found, after this winter fallowing, that oats, peas, 

 or any spring grain, will do much better drilled in at 

 once, the first day the land is dry, than if put in on 

 ground which is hurriedly cultivated, leaving the stones 

 ;;nd stumps to be in the way at harvest, or treading and 

 packing down the soil to its great injury. Winter fal- 

 lowing effectually and generally carried out, where the 

 soil is compact and heavy, would regenerate agriculture. 

 ~No business succeeds without forecast, and no class use 

 less forethought than the farmer. Suppose a store- 

 keeper only paid attention to half his customers, and at 

 seasons of the year almost shut up shop, would he be 

 more unwise than the farmer who loses the whole of 

 the fall, and does not prepare his land for a crop of 

 spring grain ? 



A great deal of good judgment should be exercised 

 about winter-fallowing very light soils, which never bake 

 in hot weather. When there is a large percentage of 

 alumina and lime in a soil, so that a furrow-slice rolls 

 over more like a huge slab of putty than the dirt of a 

 fertile soil, when the land is being ploughed, the fertil : 

 ity of the soil can be wonderfully improved by winter 

 fallowing. Read about Fall Ploughing in my second 

 volume of Young Farmer's Manual. Light soils are 

 sometimes injured more by winter fallowing than they 

 are benefited. But, whatever may be the character of 



