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THE GKNESfiE FARMER. 



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and seed is so general as to amount to a public calamity. Now that guano is operating 

 so favorably to encourage the cultivation of this great staple, it is still more important 

 that the whole art and. science of wheat-growing be universally studied and understood. 

 Next to the tliorough cultivation of the soil and timely seeding, the use of none but 

 perfectly clean seed should command particular attention. If one can not obtain pure 

 ^-seed for all the land which he intends to sow, let him at least seed one acre of the 

 cleanest field ho has with hand-picked wheat (we pick it in the bundle before threshing) 

 for his future seed. To clean land on which garlic has matured and scattered its seed 

 for a century, is no slight task ; but we have taken it in hand, and with what success 

 futyre years must determine. 



So far as the wheat itself is concerned, we never saw finer in Western New York 

 than is raised in the District of Columbia this year. White Mint is more cultivated 

 than any other kind, although white and red, bald and bearded, with a liberal sprink- 

 ling of rye, are often mixed. Carelessness appears to be the rule, and clean cultivation 

 the exception, in the different States that we have visited. Can no improvement in 

 wheat-culture be attained, now that agricultural papers have become as plenty as black- 

 berries ? Will not some agricultural society step forward and signalize itself by perfect- 

 ing the production of one valuable crop ? It needs more system in manuring the land, 

 whether by turning in clover, by using guano, stable and yard manure, ashes, lime, 

 bone-dust, poudrette, or other fertilizers. Make the soil right in reference to its con- 

 stituent elements, secure perfect pulverization, and the battle is more than half won. 

 What the earth lacks in some places, to adapt it to wheat-culture, which it contains in 

 others, is still a debatable point. Some say ammonia, some lime and phosphoric acid, 

 and some potash and soda. It must be confessed that the subject is involved in a good 

 deal of obscurity, and that no proper efibrt has ever been made in this country to inves- 

 tigate and elucidate the difiiculties. The fact, however, is conceded, that limestone 

 regions are better adapted to the growth of wheat than others. Thus, the limestone 

 county of Monroe, through which runs the Genesee river, produces thirty times more 

 wheat than the whole State of Massachusetts, which has very little limestone soil. 

 Why should not the Connecticut valley grow wheat equal to the valley of the Genesee ? 

 Who can answer this question? At the last census, Massachusetts returned 2,133,436 

 acres of improved land, and only 31,221 bushels of wheat. Monroe county is not large, 

 but her wheat crop usually exceeds 1,200,000 bushels. There are single towns in Western 

 New York that produce twice as much wheat as all Massachusetts. It has long been a 

 matter of surprize to us that while New England contains so many able men, no one 

 should not have made wheat soils a special study. With 11,140,504 acres of improved 

 land, the six New England States grow only 1,081,874 bushels of wheat; while the 

 little State of Maryland, with about one-fifth the land under cultivation, produces 

 4,494,680 bushels. What natural advantage over New England has Maryland for the 

 production of this cereal ? Even tobacco and corn-growing Virginia, whose impover- 

 ished " old fields" have long been the subject of remark, produces more bushels of wheat 

 than she has acres of improved land. Our enterprising friends of the northern and 

 eastern Atlantic States should not be surpassed by little Delaware, nor by Maryland 

 and Virginia, in wheat-growing. North Carolina raises twice as much wheat as all 

 New England ; and even South Carolina is about even in that regard. The critical 

 study of wheat-culture in the old thirteen States is full of instruction ; and we respect- 

 fully commend it to the attention of our readers. The business has now reached a 

 peculiar crisis in the States named ; for the raw material for making the crop has to be 

 in part supplied to the land. What is this lacking material? Experience during six 

 thousand years, since " Cain was a tiller of the ground," has foiled to inform us. Will 

 American farmers be content to wait six thousand years longer for art to teach what 

 art alone never knew, and never can know ? 



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