336 



WHEAT CULTUKB. 



Mr. OsBORN, of Watervliet, had used salt on his 

 orchard, with the best result. It had an astonishing 

 ellfct. 



Mr. Harris asked how Mr. Osbor.n knew that the 

 salt was beneficial, — was a portion of the orchard left 

 without any salt? 



Mr. Osborn replied that the whole orchard was 

 Pressed tvilh salt, but that he knew that the salt had 

 a good effect, because the trees bore and grew better 

 the year after it was applied than they did the year 

 preceding. 



Some gentlemen remarked that the year referred 

 to may have been the bearing year, and probably 

 they would have borne as well without the salt. 

 And thus the discussion ended. 



THEORY AHD PEACTICE IN WHEAT CULIUEE. 

 Mr. Smith, of Lois Weedon, England, is rendering 

 the farming interest of the civihzed portion of the 

 human family an almost invaluable service by demon- 

 strating the capacity of the atmosphere to supply 

 all, or nearly all, the organic part of the most perfect 

 wheat plants, when grown year after year on the 

 same field. His experiments have now been steadily 

 prosecuted some ten years, planting wheat after wheat 

 without manure of any kind; and his crop this sea- 

 ion is better than ever befoie — estimated at six 

 quarters, or 'forty-eight bushels per acre. In a com- 

 munication to the London Agricultural Gazette, 

 and published in the number that bears date Septem- 

 ber 1, 1855, he thus states his "theory."— "The lead- 

 ing point in this theory is, that if with a deepened 

 and pulverized interval a due supply of mineral food 

 be furnished to the wheat plant, the atmosphere will 

 abvndantly provide the organic portion; and that 

 clay.s and loams generally, though not universally, do 

 afford this requisite mineral supply. The safe theory, 

 further, is, that on soils which do not contain all or 

 any of the constituent minerals of the wheat plant, 

 every such deficiency must be supplied from without. 

 " When these conditions are fulfilled, the experience 

 of n'.any years has taught me that for this plan of 

 growing wheal, land can not be too much exhausted, 

 that is, of previous manuring, or of that which — so 

 to speak — naturally exists in the soil from the decay 

 of animal or vegetable matter. And now for the 

 proof. I have said that the crop on the clay land 

 was the best and heaviest I have ever had— I may 

 even add that it was the best crop of wleat I ever 

 law anywhere; and yet it was the tenth crop in suc- 



cession on a great portion of the same acres of land, 

 that original portion being the best of the whole." 



Should another decade fully confirm the experience 

 of the last, the Eev. farmer of Lois Weedon will 

 have done much to develop the wonderful natural 

 resources of both the land and the atmosphere to 

 produce wheat— the staff of human fife. To the 

 practical wheat-grower, the following remarks of Mr. 

 Smith may not be uninstructive: 



" With regard to this year's crop on the clay, the 

 line was distinctly marked to a foot between the old 

 portion and the new, the former being bright as fine 

 gold, while the latter was late and discolored, and 

 only saved from mildew by the extraordinary season. 

 " The four-acre piece of light gravelly loam is thor- 

 oughly exhausted of organic food, having now borne 

 five crops in succession after wheat in the ordinary 

 four-course rotation. Finding it deficient also in a 

 due supply of mineral ingredients for the wheat, a 

 portion of it, before the last sowing, was dressed with 

 clay. On the part not dressed with clay the crop 

 was weak; and that portion of the field I am now 

 supplying with mineral food by similar means. As 

 a proof that a due supply of mineral substances was 

 wanting in that portion, and that mineral food alone 

 was required, I must here state that, the field being 

 foul with a century's filth, I pared the stubble before 

 sowing and burnt it, together with the weeds on that 

 particular portion ; and wher.ever the heaps were 

 burnt, necessarily leaving on these spots more ashes 

 than were spread elsewhere, there the crop was the 

 heaviest and highest by six or eight inches. As a 

 proof that exhausted land is best suited to this plan 

 of growing wheat, being a security to a great extent 

 ao-ainst mildew and a bad sample, there is the fact 

 the whole crop that this original four-acre piece, both 

 last year and this, was good in straw and in grain ; 

 while an added piece of about two chains, which had 

 been manured for roots, and was in wheat two years 

 ago, was badly mildewed the first year, and barely 

 escaped it this.'' 



The application of clay, both burnt and unburnt, 

 to impoverished land with a view to make it fertile, 

 is no new practice. It is, however, not so well known 

 in this country as it ought to be. Good clays con- 

 tain not only all the so-called mineral elements of 

 wheat and maize, but no inconsiderable amount of 

 ammonia (see Lee's Study of Soils, p. 28, in PateiU 

 Office Report, 1850). The absorbent and deodori- 

 zin" power of clay is well known, without which 

 most soils would sustain the wear and tear of tillage 

 and cropping with much feebler resistance. In some 



