NEW ENGL.ANB 



RMER. 



PUBLISHED BY GEO. C. BARRETT, NO. 52, NORTH MARKET STREET, (at the Agricultural Warkhouse.)-T. G. FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



VOL. XII. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 7, 1833. 



NO. 4. 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



For the New Engtan d Farmer. 

 CULTURE OP WHEAT. 

 Mr. Editor, I read always with great respect 



of large quantities of barberry bushes, with wind 

 tliat part of the country abounds. 



The last spring I sowed the same wheat in ;i 

 piece of rich alluvial land in the Deerfield mead- 

 ows, near the juncture of that river with the Con- 



the communications in your paper signed " 15.'' necticut, which had been the year before in 1 



recognizing under that signature the pen of one of 

 the most intelligent and instructive farmers in the 

 United States. With these feelings I took up his 

 late remarks in your No. 1 of the present volume, 

 on the failure of the wheat crops in New England. 

 The subject is of the highest importance, and as 

 be can have no object but the truth in the case, 

 the ascertainment of the real causes, — and as«in 

 controverting the theory of President Dvvight, he 

 has only substituted another, he will deem facts 

 which bear upon the question highly valuable, 

 since it is only by facts, accurately observed, that 

 the matter can be decided. 



Wheat is subject to several diseases, and many 

 enemies in the insect tribe ; but it is its failure by 

 what is called blasting, mildew, or rust, to which 

 we shall more particularly refer. When the crop 

 is fast approaching maturity the stalk and leaves 

 suddenly assume a brown appearance like the 

 rust of iron, which extends pretty rapidly through 

 the whole field ; the ears do not fill, or the grain 

 becomes shrivelled ; and a very small crop or an 

 entire loss of crop is the consequence. The fre- 

 quent occurrence of this disease has been the rea- 

 son why the cultivation of wheat on the meadow 

 grounds of the Connecticut, river has been for 

 several years almost wholly abandoned. 



President Dvvight describes what physicians 

 call the prognostics of the disease very accurately. 

 " Plethora is induced in the plant, or an ex*cess of 

 sap in the culm or stock, which not rinding a 

 ready passage in warm and damp weather, rup- 

 tures the sap vessels, flows out upon the surface, 

 becomes acrid, corrodes the straw, induces rust, 

 and finally blasts the grain." He ascribes it to the 

 deleterious influence of animal manure, or stable 

 and yard dung. 



The President of the Agricultural Society in 

 New York ascribes the disease to a want of the 

 specific food of the plant in the soil, whicji is ni- 

 trogen — a substance in which the New England 

 lands, which are of primitive formation, are defi- 

 cient, which plants are incapable of obtaining 

 from the atmosphere, but which he thinks may be 

 furnished by the application of lime, ashes, fish, 

 bones, horns, slaughter-house manure, and the 

 urine of animals. Now wnat are the facts in the 

 case. Four years ago I raised a fine crop of 

 spring wheat (the seed called the Tea wheat, ob- 

 tained at the Agricultural Store, Boston,) at the 

 rate of twenty-five bushels to the acre on my farm 

 at Lyun, a primitive formation, and in the midst 

 of hills of granite. This was" in a gravelly soil, 

 and the land highly manured with soap boiler's 

 waste and leached ashes, in which a considerable 

 quantity of lime was intermixed. The succeeding 

 y.ear I was as successful in a similar soil on a side 

 of a hill, the land having been manured the pre- 

 vious year for turnips with common stable manure. 

 Both these crops were entirely free from disease, 

 and what is not a little remarkable grew in the 

 immediate neighborhood, within five or ten rods 



letup. 

 I manured for the wheat with common barn yard 

 manure, and upon three quarters of an aero ob- 

 tained thirteen bushels of a very fine sample,. and 

 the crop perfectly free from disease or blight, 

 though the, kernel was rather small. This was 

 the spring wheat, of which I have now standing 

 upon two acres a promising crop. 



The year before the last Col. Wilson, living in 

 Deerfield on the banks of the Connecticut, raised 

 a fine crop of winter wheat on land which two 

 years before had been manured for Indian corn 

 and the year preceding very liberally for hemp, of 

 which a good crop was gathered, but the year on 

 which the wheat was sowed the land received no 

 manure. His crop was healthy, and amounted to 

 34 bushels an acre, for which the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural Society conferred upon him a pre- 

 mium. 



The last year large crops of fine wheat were 

 raised in this vicinity in the neighborhood of the 

 rivers, and some very fine crops on land which 

 had been the year preceding manured for hemp, 

 and on which a crop of hemp had been raised. 

 Very good crops likewise were obtained in various 

 places above and below this place on the alluvial 

 lands of the Connecticut, making flour equal to 

 any received under the best Genesee brands. 



Emboldened by this success much wheat is 

 growing the present year on the meadows of the 

 Connecticut and Deerfield rivers ; one individual 

 having twenty-three acres in one lot, which prom- 

 ised finely and which he expected to reap ten 

 days since ; but the result of which I have not 

 heard. I myself sowed three acres of winter 

 wheat on some of the best land in the Deerfield 

 meadows. The land was green sward, turned up 

 last fall, rolled and harrowed, and the seed soaked 

 in strong brine and then limed, and sowed at the 

 rate of two and one half bushels to an acre on the 

 27th October last. One half the lot was abun- 

 dantly manured, and to the other no manure was 

 applied. The seed came up finely, and nothing 

 could exceed the beauty and luxuriance of the 

 growth, a greater part of the field averaging more 

 than five feet in height. I know that the fish we 

 lose from the hook just at the surface of the water 

 are always the largest, but many respectable and 

 experienced farmers pronounced it as fine a growth 

 as they had ever seen ; and before and since it 

 was cut gave it as their opinion that if it had filled 

 well it might have been expected to yield from 

 forty to sixty bushels to the acre. 



Above half of the field, including an equal por- 

 tion of the manured and that not manured, wag 

 passed over twice in the spring after the grain had 

 got to be six inches in height with a light harrow 

 drawn by one yoke of oxen ; and three weeks af- 

 ter was subjected to the same process, according to 

 the method practised in France, as mentioned by 

 the late President of the N. Y. Agr. Society in his 

 second communication to that body. The effect 

 of this was to destroy very few of the plants, and 



to render the growth of what remained much 

 more luxuriant, producing such an increase of the 

 stem and such an extension of the heads as to 

 attract the notice of the most casual observer, and 

 to induce several persons, who were ignorant of 

 the process to which it had been subjected, to in- 

 quire for the cause of the difference in the two 

 parts of the field, and to ask if a different kind of 

 seed had been used. 



After all, however, to my extreme disappoint- 

 ment, the whole field has been blasted, and I shall 

 hardly get back to the amount of seed sown, and 

 that in a small shrivelled grain. The crop is 

 housed but will scarcely pay the expense of thresh- 

 ing. 



Now that this result was not owing to the use 

 of stable dung is obvious, because none was used ; 

 and that part of the field where the blight ap- 

 peared to commence and to make most rapid pro- 

 gress, no manure whatever was used. 



It was not owing to the want of the specific 

 property in the soil as far as that is to be found in 

 lime and slaughter-house manure, for both of these 

 were employed ; the seed was limed, and the 

 above manure copiously applied. 



It is not to be attributed to the luxuriance of the 

 crop, for several pieces, as I learn in my neigh- 

 borhood, have suffered equally, and from the same 

 cause, when the cultivation was by no means so 

 high. 



It is not a time of universal failure, for a good 

 deal in this vicinity is perfectly healthy and sound, 

 and I have already reaped on the same farm a 

 small piece of wheat, say half an acre, on higher 

 land, which was healthy and fair, though from the 

 condition of the land it gave a small product. 

 Tli is, however, though sowed at the same time, 

 was ready for the sickle more than a week sooner 

 than the other, from the drier and poorer charac- 

 ter of the soil. 



What then was the cause of the blast ? I will 

 not assume to decide this question, but as far as 

 appears it was atmospheric, occurring at a particu- 

 lar state of the plant, which rendered it peculiarly 

 liable to blight. As the wheat was filling fast, we 

 had frequent showers, and much of what we yan- 

 kees call muggy weather ; one day in particular 

 the air was sultry, the heat intense, and the 

 showers frequent with intervals of sunshine, and 

 the earth was steaming most profusely. An in- 

 telligent farmer in my employ, accustomed to the 

 cultivation of this grain iu one of the best wheat 

 districts in New York, remarked to me that this 

 was severe weather for my wheat and that he 

 feared I should lose it. The rust in fact appeared 

 for the first time the next day and rapidly extended 

 itself over the whole field, presenting no difference 

 either in the manured or in the parts of the field 

 not manured, and of course less luxuriant. Had 

 my wheat been sown earlier, so as to have been 

 farther advanced, it would probably have escaped 

 the blight; had it been sown later, so as not to 

 have been so far advanced as it was, perhaps I 

 should have been as fortunate ; but the occurrence 

 of such a peculiar state of the atmosphere being 

 wholly accidental, at least as far as we are con- 

 cerned, it is impossible to make any certain calcu- 

 lation in respect to it, 



