Preparing for Winter Wheat. 211 



But now I have preached fine tillage pretty strongly. There 

 is one drawback that must be told. On our heavy soils, if they 

 have been ground into a powder almost, by so much working, and 

 a heavy rain comes right after seeding, sometimes more damage 

 will be done than if land was not worked down so fine. It runs 

 together into a regular mortar bed and afterwards bakes. If the 

 soil was coarser on the surface this would not occur to nearly the 

 same extent. There is no question but that there is this risk to 

 run. I have suffered some in this way, but all other years the 

 pulverization paid grandly, and I will take the risk, with this pre- 

 caution, that I will try to sow after this heavy storm rather than 

 before. If the weather is threatening, barometer low, air muggy 

 etc., unless too late to risk waiting longer, I will not sow until 

 after the storm is over. I much prefer anyway to sow after a 

 rain in moist soil. Work when dry, but sow" when moist. This 

 causes a quick start. I dislike greatly to sow in dry soil, but 

 sometimes have to. A neighbor once came over where I was 

 working my wheat ground along in the afternoon. It was threat- 

 ening a heavy storm. He said he had his wheat land all ready and 

 hardly knew whether to begin drilling or not. I told him I was 

 ready, but would keep on working my land and not drill just 

 before a heavy rain. He thought that was best, but went home and 

 went to drilling. Before he got in half of the field it rained very 

 hard and he was delayed some days about getting in the rest. 

 All through the fall and spring you could see to a line where he 

 stopped drilling before the rain. It was much poorer wheat. It. 

 could hardly get up ; did not near all of it, and grew feebly. 

 That put in moist soil and no heavy rain com ing afterwards made 

 a much better growth. Do not understand that I want a seed 

 bed hard. You might get it too hard by working when wet ; but 

 never too firm by working when dry enough. We want mellow 

 but firm, settled soil. Then the little feeble plants have a chance 

 to grow from the start thriftily. They have fine soil right around 

 them. Think how small a grain of wheat is. To give it a chance 

 to start well, it wants to be in soil prepared as for a flower bed or 

 for garden seeds . Then you can drill wheat shallow and it does not 

 have to send its roots down some inches for suitable feeding 

 ground, as when the surface is cloddy. Then it can grow on the 

 surface more, a net work of roots spreading all through the fine 

 surface soil, and when freezing and thawing weather comes the 

 whole surface rises and falls together more. It is hard to heave 

 out wheat, growing strongly like this on drained land, so as to 

 greatly injure it. But suppose the surface is not fine, and the 

 roots have gone down more to where it is finer, they must surely 

 be broken more by freezing, and the plants having but few sur- 

 face roots, instead of a mass of them, are easily destroyed. Again, 

 fine, compact soil will not hold water in as large quantities to- 

 gether, and the action of frost will not be so severe. I was 

 pleased to hear Prof. Webster of the United States Department 



