WHERE WINTER WHEAT is THE MONEY CROP 129 



ing dry weather, and the soil particles are but slightly broken up and the 

 clods lie loosely, there is every chance, in our dry autumn weather, that the 

 wheat will fail to germinate, while if the soil is plowed early, and thoroughly 

 fined and settled by repeated harrowings and rollings, the wheat may be 

 sown in a very dry time with every chance in its favor. It takes little obser- 

 vation, when passing through the country after wheat seeding, to see the 

 difference in the stand on well prepared fields and on hastily plowed and 

 seeded ones. On a good wheat soil we had rather take the chances for a good 

 crop on soil thoroughly prepared and with no fertilizer, than on a hastily 

 prepared and late plowed field with the best of fertilization. We cannot 

 too often repeat, that the homogenous condition of the soil, made by thor- 

 ough preparation, fining and packing, is the great essential to a good crop of 

 grain. 



GREEN MANURING FOR WHEAT. 



For many years writers in the agricultural papers have recommended 

 the plowing under of clover or peas as a preparation for the wheat crop. In 

 the heavier glacier clays of the North this may probably be done without 

 harm, but in the South, especially on a light soil, such a practice is often 

 more productive of damage than good, from the evolution of organic acids in 

 the hot soil and warm season. A heavy vegetable growth can be safely 

 plowed under in the early spring when the soil is to be stirred for a hoed 

 crop, but in the warm season the plowing under of any green mass is apt to 

 produce disastrous results. And even where there may not be as much 

 danger from the souring of the soil as there certainly is south of the Potomac, 

 the burying of a large amount of organic matter in the soil, just before 

 wheat seeding, will prevent the proper firming and uniform condition essen- 

 tial to success with the wheat crop. One of the worst failures I ever saw 

 was from the burying of a great growth of cow peas in September. The 

 mass was so heavy that it could not be well buried, and the soil did not get 

 the preparation it needed. The wheat grew off well, and there was a fine 

 stand of grass, which was the thing mainly wanted. In the spring the 

 growth of wheat was enormous from the rapid nitrification of the organic 

 matter in the soil, but as soon as headed it all fell flat, and the result was 

 a very poor crop of wheat and the grass was smothered out, so that the whole 

 thing had to be done over. This was in Maryland up near the Pennsylvania 

 line. Here in the South such a plowing under would probably have resulted 

 in such a souring that nothing would have grown at all till the land was 

 heavily limed to restore its sweetness. 



