manure can be applied immediately before the sowing 

 of wheat, without doing more or less injury to hat 

 crop On soils where this is not toe case, it will be 

 found that human or vegetable mold forms a very 

 small proportion of their ingredients, and doubtless 

 on soils of this kind, crude and unfermented barnyard 

 manure may be applied without producing the iore- 

 xroine results. In those cases where vegetable de- 

 posits form a small proportion of the active soil, un- 

 fermented barn yard manure, buried in the soil to a 

 depth of six or nine inches with the plow, will aid 

 materially in bringing into action such inert proper- 

 ties as will promote a vigorous growth of plants and 

 vegetables. Manure thus applied has a powerful 

 mechanical action on soils, and the beneficial or pre- 

 judicial influence produced, may be attributed as 

 much to this agency as to that of affording a direct 

 supply of food for their sustenance. 



The mechanical action of manures on soils, of 

 course greatly depend upon the quality and condition 

 of the soils on which they are intended to act. I his 

 fact should be duly considered in connection with the 

 manuring of land for the wheat crop. The wheat 

 plant is decidedly the most precarious to cultivate, ot 

 the cereal plants, and hence a greater degree of 

 judgment should be employed by those who engage 

 extensively in its cultivation. In northern Europe, 

 the heat of summer is less severe than in the same 

 decree of latitude on this continent, and consequent- 

 ly "a much longer period is given the wneat crop to 

 mature and ripen, and hence the disease known 

 among us by the appellation of rust, is scarcely 

 known in the best wheat growing districts of Europe. 

 It is well known by all wheat growers, that cool dry 

 weather during the month of July, and up to the pe- 

 riod of wheat harvest — or from the time that the 

 wheat plants come into ear, until they arrive to full 

 maturity — is most favorable for an abundant harvest 

 of wheat. Such weather has just the opposite in- 

 fluence with Indian Corn and most of the other cereal 

 plants. The cause of this somewhat strange phe- 

 nomenon, may be tolerably correctly reconciled by 

 examining the peculiar habits and constitution ot the 

 wheat plant. A minute enquiry into this matter, 

 will probably be made in discussing another branch 

 of this subject— and in the mean time the fact should 

 be remembered, that the plants of wheat have strong 

 roots, which strike to a great deph into the ground, 

 and send forth an abundant supply of food through 

 the sap vessels, which impart either a healtny or 

 sicklv growth, just in ratio with its quality and adap- 

 tation for this class of plants. Warm humid weather 

 is the most favorable for a vigorous growth of plants, 

 and vegetables— when weather of this kind prevails 

 to a considerable extent, between the periods that the 

 wheat crop cornea into ear and ripens, the consequence 

 will be a strong growth of straw, and probably dis- 

 ease The disease produced from the foregoing pe- 

 culiar state of the atmosphere would be either mildew 

 or rust. The latter, by far the most prevalent on this 

 continent, is mainly engendered by too great a flow 

 of juices or food through the sap vessels of the wheat 

 plants. The outer covering of the straw being of 

 very weak structure, when the sap vessels become 

 overcharged with food, rupture and premature decay 

 immediately follows. The state of the atmosphere 

 and climate doubtless has much to do in effecting this 

 work, but the soil also has a great influence, in pre- 

 venting or promoting this disease. It is for this 

 reason* that Indian Corn may be profitably grown 



as a preparative crop for either fall or spring wheat. 

 The manure applied to the soil for the corn crop, 

 will have undergone a thorough state of fermenta- 

 tion during the process of cultivation, and as the 

 maize plant requires a different quality of food to 

 bring it forward to maturity than is required by the 

 wheat plant, the latter will be more apt to be free 

 from disease, if sown after a well cultivated crop of 

 Indian Corn, than if the land had been summer fal- 

 lowed purposely for that crop. A clover or timothy 

 sod well plowed, and liberally manured, is the best 

 possible state that the soil can be in for Indian Corn. 

 If the hills be planted in rows four feet apart both 

 ways, there will be no difficulty in cultivating this 

 crop entirely with the horse cultivator, and shovel 

 plow, By the free use of those implements the 

 ground may be made as clean as if it had been sum- 

 mer fallowed, and besides the profit of the corn crop 

 will pay the whole expense incurred in the cultiva- 

 tion and management of the wheat crop. 



An acre of Indian Corn managed in the manner 

 proposed, will yield in an average of cases upwards 

 of 40 bushels of marketable grain per acre. This 

 at the lowest calculation is worth 50 cents per bush- 

 el, as an article of export, which, in addition to the 

 corn stalks for winter provender for horned cattle, 

 would give a net profit of twelve dollars per acre. 

 When it is intended to sow wheat after corn, the 

 latter crop should in all cases be harvested and drawn 

 off the ground, a short time before the crop is thor- 

 oughly ripe, by which means more time will be giv- 

 en to prepare the land for the wheat crop, and the 

 fodder will also be much more valuable than if al- 

 lowed to get dead ripe before being harvested. When 

 the proper season arrives for the practical operations 

 on the farm, suited for the cultivation of the maize 

 plant, full directions will be given, for the proper per- 

 formance of the business in all its details. 



In our next issue, the cultivation of the clover 

 plant as a preparative crop for fall wheat will pro- 

 bably receive attention at our hands. 



UNSEASONABLE WEATHER 



The past month (December) has been seven 

 degrees warmer in Philadelphia and farther south, 

 than any previous December in 57 years. This 

 hiffh temperature, (now the 16th January, it is up to 

 summer heat,) in Augusta, Ga., has caused a good 

 deal of vegetable and animal matter to decompose in 

 this warm climate, and induced Cholera and other 

 bilious diseases. Very few duly appreciate how 

 laro-e a portion of sickness in the United States 

 springs directly or indirectly, from noxious gases 

 diffused in the water drank, or the air inhaled into 

 the lungs. Farmers are nowhere particular enough 

 to collect all the volatile and soluble elements of 

 plants and animal excretions, which are lost in rivu- 

 lets and poison the atmosphere, and use them as 

 manure, by fixing them in the surface soil. A dead 

 sheep cut up and buried a small distance under loam 

 or earth will not smell offensively, because the soil 

 condenses and holds for a time at least the mephitic 

 aases. In all cities there is a prodigious waste ot 

 most concentrated and valuable fertilizers, which too 

 often breed pestilence. Charcoal, leached ashes and 

 gypsum mixed with night soil will do wonders on all 

 crops. The winter is a good season to collect the 

 raw material for abundant harvests. Study the defi- 

 ciencies in the land, and remedy the same. 



