172 SOILING CROPS AND THE SILO. 



'Soil. Wheat, oats, barley and rye may be 

 successfully grown on a wide range of soils. Each 

 kind, nevertheless, has its favorite soil. Wheat 

 luxuriates in deep, moist, pliable loam soils, well 

 spiced with clay and well stored with vegetable 

 matter. The loose lying soils of nearly all the west- 

 ern prairies have high adaptation for wheat pro- 

 duction. Soils ill adapted to the growing of wheat 

 include those that are sandy and poorly supplied 

 with nitrogen, those that are shallow, with hardpan 

 coming near the surface, and those that contain an 

 excess of water at any time during the growth of 

 the plants. Oats also grow most luxuriantly on 

 soils that are best suited to the growth of wheat. 

 But since the oat plant is a more gross feeder than 

 the wheat plant, it will produce a better growth 

 relatively than wheat on soil ill conditioned, me- 

 chanically and imperfectly supplied with plant food. 

 Barley will grow better relatively on soils rich in 

 humus and in readily available fertility. Black 

 loam soils, with enough sand to keep them in a good 

 mechanical condition, have high adaptation for 

 barley, and since this grain feeds near the surface 

 rather than far down, much depth of subsoil is less 

 essential to the growth of barley than to the growth 

 of wheat and oats. The soils with least adaptation 

 for barley include those deficient in humus and which 

 contain an excess of clay. Since the crop grows 

 rapidly, if it is to be a success, the young plants 

 must be able to send their rootlets quickly and in all 

 directions between the soil particles. 



Rye is beyond all comparison the most vigor- 

 ous feeder of the four cereals under discussion. It 



