158 " Through the Wheat'' 



Several wheats, indeed, are between four and five feet 

 high ; and some of these suffer very much in the case 

 of wind and rain coming together, and are more apt to 

 get laid than others, which, though equally tall, are 

 more powerfully built, so to speak, and are capable of 

 recovering themselves though exposed to great force of 

 wind and rain. 



Farming by rule of thumb may do under certain 

 circumstances; hardly can it do when the holding is 

 extensive, and where the soil may vary through a 

 considerable range. Then the mere sowing in of seed 

 according to a hard-and-fast rule of rotation need not 

 be expected to pay. The scientific farmer must be 

 continually on the outlook for new and suitable stocks ; 

 and I learn that even a change of stock is often ad- 

 visable on the mere rule that planting over and over 

 again the same corn in the same land has a tendency, 

 clear and unmistakable, to operate disadvantageously. 

 Farmers in different districts thus very often inter- 

 change seed stocks, and, within a certain range of 

 suitability, generally to advantage. But high farming, 

 as it is now called, demands not only much knowledge, 

 but great foresight, calculation, power to enter on ex- 

 periment, and scientific skill enough to read alike what 

 a certain grain takes in greater excess than another 

 from the soil, and the best manure or chemical elements 

 to supply again to the soil that which was in excess 

 taken from it. This is all quite over and above the 

 consideration due to general effects of atmosphere, soil, 

 rain, &c. &c. Thus it will appear that farming is by 

 no means an unintelligent or mechanical calling in these 

 days. A skilled farmer is indeed a man not only of 

 much energy and resource and capital, but in a certain 

 degree at all events a chemist and skilled meteorologist. 



