CHAPTER XXIV. 



PREPARING FOR WINTER WHEAT. 



T has generally been considered that the light, sandy 

 and gravelly loam soils were the best for wheat. 

 We hear of natural wheat land. The above is the 

 kind meant. And it is true that Nature has made 

 them all ready for successful wheat growing, as 

 far as drainage, at least, is concerned. But I 

 believe the clay soils usually can be made just as productive after 

 being tile-drained by man. It will take more labor to prepare 

 them properly, and the risk from winter killing is slightly greater. 

 Still I would not hesitate to make winter wheat one money crop 

 in my rotation on well-drained clay soil, and I should expect to 

 raise good paying crops, too, on the average; but the tile draining 

 would be the foundation, without which my success would be a 

 matter of luck very largely. With the best of preparation, an 

 open winter and much freezing and thawing, on undrained land, 

 is certain to take all profit out of the business, and will, probably, 

 make you work for about half what you pay your hired man. 

 There can be no really successful wheat growing on our heavy 

 clays, particularly when flat, without drainage. I have watched 

 this point for years, as there are many clay farms in my town. 

 Once in a while they have a good paying crop on such land, and 

 then they have almost failures or, perhaps, ten or fifteen bushels per 

 acre. It would be hard to find a real clay farm where no tile 

 draining has been done that can show a yield on the average that 

 will pay cost of production for ten years in succession. Resort is 

 had to surface draining in narrow lands on the flat clay soils, but 

 this is only a makeshift. After reading chapters on Drainage, I 

 think you must see that, although better than nothing, it is not the 

 best way. 



If starting out to make a success of wheat growing, I would 

 first of all attend to the draining and then to getting available 

 plant food enough in the soil to bring as large a crop as the straw 

 could stand up under, or even a little more, so as to make sure 

 of enough. Anything less than this is not business. No good 

 farmer would think of working a team that was so poorly fed that 

 it could only do a half day's work each day. At a glance that 

 would be seen to be extremely foolish. But these same men, year 

 after year, are satisfied to let a crop of wheat go half fed, and 

 hence do only half what it might for them. Is it not just as 

 unbusinesslike to do the latter as the former ? I can see no differ- 



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