WHEAT. 77 



Where two plants or grains demand and appropriate to themseh es the same 

 salts and elements of subsistence existing in the soil, it is not expedient to have 

 them follow in immediate succession. Wheat, we are told, for example, will 

 not grow on a soil that has produced wormwood, and, vice versa, wormwood 

 does not thrive where wheat has grown, because they are mutually prejudicial 

 by appropriating to themselves the alkalies of the soil. 



One hundred parts of the stalks of wheat, says Sir H. Davy, yield lo-o parts 

 of ashes. The same quantity of the dry stalks of barley, 8-54 parts ; and one 

 hundred parts of the stalks of oats, only 4-42. The ashes of all these are of the 

 same composition. We have, says Liebig, in these facts, a clear proof of what 

 plants require for their growth. " Upon the same field," he adds, " that will 

 yield but one harvest of wheat, two crops of barley and three of oats may be 

 raised." The standard weight for barley is 48 pounds per bushel, the present 

 price 56 cents ; and persons familiar with the cultivation are of opinion that land 

 which Avill produce twenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre will yield thirty- 

 five of barley. It is found to be particularly well adapted to the protection and 

 bringing forwardof a grass crop, as clover and timothy, which in the neighborhood 

 of New- York are almost invariably sowed on the same land — the clover going 

 out after the first year's cutting, while oats, if on land rich enough to produce 

 a heavy crop of themselves, or of wheat or grass, is apt to lodge, causing destruc- 

 tion to itself and smothering the young grass under it. 



But supposing the farmer to have determined on sowing a certain space of land 

 in wheat — let us proceed with the subject. 



Here, again, we must beg the reader to bear in mind that if we go not now 

 so fully into this subject and occasionally into others, as he might naturally ex- 

 pect us from their obvious importance, it is (and frequently v/ill be) because we 

 must bear in mind that we and he have a great book before tis ; one in which, in 

 their proper turn, he may expect such subjects to be fully exhibited — for instance, 

 in Stephens's Book of the Farm, appearing to him, perhaps, so far, to be so 

 little interesting or practical, we shall come in due season to the article on wheat, 

 and he may form some notion of the fullness with which it will be treated, when 

 he is told that besides well executed engravings of the different kinds of wheat, 

 and machines for sowing and cleaning, the subject itself will be treated under 

 all these heads : Wheat — Spring sowing of ; English method — Classification 

 of it by the ear, by the grain — Rules for judging of its quality, color, <S)C. — 

 Kinds best adapted to various purposes ; the best for seed — Detection of darn- 

 aged — Best loay of preserving in granaries — Grinding of it — Quantity and bulk 

 of flour, bran, <SfC. yielded by — Its chemical composition — Its microscopic struc- 

 ture — Amount of nutritive matter in — Manifacture of starch from — Straw of — 

 Varieties of— Weeds infesting the crop, and their removal — Insects and diseases 

 affecting — Proper degree of ripeness for cutting — Cutting and stooking of— 

 Carrying in and stacking of — Comparative u-eight of grain, straw and roots — 

 Autumn soioing of — Plowing, Jfc. of the land Jor it — Preparation of the seed 

 and solving — Best varieties — Sowing by dibbling; expense of this — Saving of 

 seed — Description of the process of germination. 



Thus the reader may judge how full will be the description on all other great 

 branches of Agriculture, and how little ground is left open for us upon this one. 

 Although it might be instructive and useful, as a matter of general informa- 

 tion, to speak of the kinds of land best adapted to the growth of wheat, and 

 the principles on which depends their adaptation to that grain, that too may be 



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