Vor. xm. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y., AUGUST, 1852. 



No. VIII. 



WHEAT CULTURE IN NEW ENGLAND. 



Much has been written, first and last, on the practicability and profit of growing wheat 

 in New England, and particularly in Massachusetts. At tliis time, the Rev. J. A. 

 Nash, of that State, is discussing the subject in the columns of the Amherst Express, 

 in which we find several interesting statements, but none of them entirely satisfactory. 

 They all fail to inform the reader of the value of the elements of fertility removed from 

 the soil in producing a good crop of this grain. The following account, taken from the 

 Transactions of the Hampden Agricultural Society^ is instructive, and doubtless relia- 

 ble, so fer as it goes : 



" Horace SikOTH's Statement. — The crop of wheat wliich I offer for premiiiin, was raised on seven 

 and a half acres of land ; the soil an alhivial sandy loam. The land was well prepared and planted 

 with corn in the spring of 1850, and harvested an excellent crop, which was cut up and carted from 

 the ground by the middle of September. We then commenced for the present crop, by dragging 

 the land, (to level the corn hills,) which prepared it for the plow. Tliis immediately succeeded, and 

 on the 25th of September the seed was sown at the rate of one bushel and a half per acre, which was 

 harrowed in and the land rolled. In July, 1851, the wheat was harvested, has been threshed, cleaned, 

 and sold for $1.10 per busheh 



■ $307 60 



The prodact was 236 bushels, amounting to $259 60 



Eight tons straw, $6 per ton, 4S 00 



Expenses for dragging the land for plow, $2 20 



Plowing, 9 3T 



Seed, 113^ bushels, at $1.50 per bushel 16 87 



Sowing, harrowing, and rolling, 4 00 



TTarvesiir-«, at $1.25 per aero 9 37 



Thrcsniilg and cleaning, 9 00 



Cartage lo market 3 00 



Land rent, $10 per acre, 75 00 



$123 81 



Net gai'n, $178 79 



Being a clear profit of twenty-three dollars and eighty-three cents per acre." 



If a ton of wheat straw is worth six dollars, what is the value of a ton of good 

 manure ? What will it cost to give back to these seven and a half acres as much of 

 vegetable mold, ammonia, soluble silica or flint, phosphoric and sulphuric acids, chlorine, 

 potash, soda, lime, and magnesia, as was removed by tillage, irrespective of what the 

 Avheat plants consumed in growing, as well as all that the crop contained? 



We hope that Mr. Nash will investigate this point, wliich for some reason has been 

 too long overlooked by practical farmers. It is easy to understand how land made rich 

 to yield a large cxpp of corn, may produce immediately after it an excellent and appa- 

 rently very cheap crop of wheat. Boussingault describes land on which wheat had 

 been successfully cultivated every year for two centuries, by the aid of manures. The 

 annual overflow of the Nile is said to fertilize the soil sufiiciently to yield annual crops 

 of wheat, with as much certainty as inundated meadows on the Connecticut river jaeld 



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