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clays often procluco o-ood crops, both as to yield and as to quality, 

 and on the other hantl the liohter soils may yield a good quality. It 

 is simply smaller in quantity. The best crops, however, come from 

 moderately stitf soils, but any fertile soil will produce good wheat 

 if all the other conditions are favorable. 



Geologically considered, the most of the wheat grown in the United 

 States is over the region of drift, but much of the wheat soil has been 

 so modified by other geological influences that the geological factor 

 is not an important one, the essential character which gives it its 

 value being as largely physical as chemical. Good wheat lands 

 agree in this, that they are sufficiently rolling for natural drainage; 

 are at the same time level enough to admit of the use of field ma- 

 chinery, and are easily tilled, admitting the use of light field imple- 

 ments in their tillage and thus allowing of a very large production 

 of grain in proportion to the amount of human labor emplo^yed. 

 The facility of putting in the crop and harvesting it is really the 

 controlling condition in many localities, so much so that the very 

 important wheat regions, where some of the most speculative farm- 

 ing of the United States is practiced, are in regions where the cli- 

 matic conditions are such that the average yield one year with 

 another may be as low as 10 bushels per acre. In such cases this 

 low average is usually due to climatic reasons rather than to a lack 

 of fertility in the soil, and in favorable years the yield may be very 

 much larger. The ease of cultivation, the facilities for gathering the 

 crop, and its good qualities in favorable years incite to the hope that 

 all years will be favorable, and in good years the profits are large. 

 In color, in the amount of clay contained, in physical and in chemical 

 characters, there is much diflference in the different soils of the coun- 

 try. Some contain much vegetable matter, others but little. We 

 may say that the soils of all the more important wheat regions (so 

 far as we have chemical analyses) are rich in lime, as well as in those 

 other elements of fertility, such as potash and phosphoric acid, which 

 are necessarv for a good crop and a good quality of grain. 



For commercial as well as for agricultural success climate is an 

 all-controlling condition. AMieat is normally a winter annual. For 

 a good crop the seed must germinate and the young plant grow dur- 

 ing the cool and moist part of the year, which season determines the" 

 ultimate density' of growth on the ground and, consequently, mostly 

 determines the yield. "\Alieat ripens in the warmer and drier parts 

 of the 3'ear, which season more largely determines the quality, phunp- 

 ness, and color of the grain. In climates with winters so cold that all 

 vegetable growth is suspended- we have tAvo distinct classes of 

 varieties, known, respectively, as spring and winter wheats. Through- 

 out all the Northern States, from ocean to ocean, and to some extent 

 in those Southern States which lie east of the Great Plains, these two 

 classes of varieties are very distinct as regards their cultivation and 

 to scmie extent also as regards their characters. In California and 

 in similar climates, as in Egypt, this distinction does not exist in 

 respect to their cultivation, although the varieties partake more of 

 the character of winter wheats than of spri ug, both in their mode of 

 growth and in the character of the flour made from them. 



But in all climates and whatever variety may be grown, the crop 

 must be sown and have its early growth in a cool part of the year. 



