GRAIN AND IT.> CULTIVATION. 1QY 



CHAPTER VII. 



GRAIN AND ITS CULTIVATION. 



WHEAT (Triticum). 



This is one of the most important and most generally 

 cultivated of the cereal grains, (or grasses as they are bo- 

 tanically termed,) though both rice and maize or Indian 

 corn, contribute lo the support of a larger population. It is 

 found in every latitude excepting those which approach too 

 nearly to the poles or equator, but it can be profitably raised 

 only within such as are strictly denominated temperate. 

 Linnceus describes only six varieties, but later botanists enu- 

 merate about thirty ; while of the sub-varieties there are sev- 

 eral hundred. The only division necessary for our present 

 purpose is of the winter wheat, (Trilicum Jiyburnum) and 

 spring or summer wheat (Triticum (pstivum). The former 

 requires the action of frost to. bring it to full maturity, and is 

 sown in Autumn. Germination before exposure to frost, 

 does not however, seem absolutely essential to its success, 

 as fine crops have been raised from seed after having been 

 saturated with water and frozen for some weeks, and sown 

 early in spring. It has also been successfully raised when 

 sowed early in the season and while the frost yet occupied 

 the ground. Spring and winter wheat may be changed 

 from one to the other by sowing at the proper time through 

 successive seasons, and without material injury to their 

 characler. The latter grain is by far the most productive, 

 the straw is stouter, the head more erect and full, the 

 grain plumper and heavier, and the price it bears in market, 

 from 8 to 15 per cent, higher than that of spring wheat. 

 This difference of price depends rather on the appearance 

 of the flour and its greater whiteness, than on any intrinsic 



