WHEAT CULTURE IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 



OOMMUNIOATED TO THE ASSOCIATION, APRIL, 1845, BY 



GEN. R. HARMON, Jr., 



Of Wheatland, Monroe County, New York. 



The soil that I have under cultivation is probably as well adapted to the production of 

 line wheat as any in the country. It is a gravelly loam, with limestone of small size or 

 gravel up to lumps of several pounds weight. It is what has been called the hard oak opening. 

 My system of cultivation is a three years shift. Clover is invariably sown on wheat in March 

 or April, about eight pounds to the acre ; and as soon as the ground is dry, in April, one 

 bushel of plaster is added to the acre. The next year pasture or mow. The third year, in 

 June, plough seven or eight inches deep- The clover should be mostly eaten off when 

 ploughed. The turning under of a great growth of clover I believe to be injurious 

 to the next crop of wheat. If fed off with sheep the manure they leave is worth more than 

 if the clover had been turned under in its green state. In turning under green clover there 

 is in the next crop frequently a coarseness in the leaf and straw that is not favorable to the 

 production of a fine quality of grain. I go over the ground thus ploughed with a cultivator ; 

 harrow three or four times by the first of September ; then cross-plough, and sow on the 

 furrow from the tenth to the fifteenth of the month ; then harrow it in with the cultivator 

 harrow. It buries the wheat deeper than the common harrow, giving the plant a more 

 vigorous appearance, rendering it less liable to injury by the thawing and freezing of the soil 

 in March and April. Wheat for seed should be selected from that part of the field which is 

 first ripe, and where it ripens evenly; all lodged or rusty straw should be rejected, for wheat 



