74 



many tons of oil-cake, and about 1500 bushels of corn, 

 and a large amount of hay. With such a mass of rich 

 material, why should he need, or use anything else. 

 Yet he plowed in clover. And such clover ! How 

 rank it must have grown, after the top-dressing such 

 as he gave the wheat. Yet how careful Le was, only 

 to pasture the clover lightly, before turning it in ! In 

 fact he made use of every means in his power to 

 insure heavy crops of wheat. 



Joseph Harris, in his celebrated lecture on " Wheat 

 Culture in Western New York," gives us Johnston's 

 views on the use of salt and lime. 



" On rich land," says Harris, " salt has a tendency 

 to check an excessive growth of straw. In some 

 experiments made recently on the farm of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society, the unman ured plot of wheat 

 produced 29 bushels per acre, and the plot dressed 

 with 3 cwt., of common salt 381 bushels, or an increase 

 of 91 bushels per acre. 



" A few years ago I was on the farm of John 

 Johnston, of Seneca County. He had dressed a part 

 of a field of wheat with a barrel of salt per acre, and 

 the effect was most decidedly beneficial. The wheat 

 was heavier, and the straw much brighter and stiffer. 

 It also ripened several days earlier and escaped the 

 midge in consequence. Mr. Johnston is here with us 

 to-day, and he has just informed me that he thinks 

 there is nothing like salt for stiffening the straw on 

 rich lands. He sows a barrel per acre on the fallows 

 just before sowing the wheat. He has sown as much 

 as 75 barrels in a year on his wheat. 



Lime is also a splendid manure for producing plump 

 heads of wheat and a stiff 1 straw. There is nothing 

 like it. Mr. Johnston says if he was a young man, he 



