236 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



September, all the scattering grains of oats will 

 gi-uw with the barley, thereby helping to cover the 

 whole surface of the ground before hard weather 

 sets in; and when the frost comes, the barley will 

 will be so firmly rooted and matted over the surface, 

 that it will not sutler from severe weather, while 

 the oats will be killed out and leave the barley to 

 occupy the whole ground in the spring. He sows 

 generally about the first of September, but if the 

 weather is very hot and dry, prefers to defer it till 

 cooler weather. 



A FEW THOUGHTS ON WHEAT CULTUSE. 



Western New Yoek has long been celebrated 

 for its fine .wheat. According to the census of 

 1845, the County of Monroe pro(4uced more wheat 

 than the whole five New England States. But 

 within the last decade, a little insect made its ap- 

 pearance, and spread so rapidly and proved so de- 

 structive, that in the winter of J85C-7, the Farm- 

 ers' Club of this self-same County of Monroe, at 

 two consecutive meetings, advocated, almost unan- 

 imously, the abandonment of wheat culture in 

 Western New York. One of our weekly agricul- 

 tural papers took the same view of the subject. 

 " Genesee Wheat," it was thought, was a thing of 

 the past. 



We took a different view of the matter ; and in 

 the Genesee Farmer for February, 1857, page 41, 

 offered some reasons why the farmers of ^Vestern 

 New York should not give up trying to raise wheat. 

 These reasons were, briefly, that the soil of this 

 section was natural wheat land : that if we could 

 not raise wheat here it could be raised nowhere; 

 that the midge, erroneously called the weevil, was 

 no new insect, but that many years ago it was ex- 

 ceedingly destructive in some parts of Great Brit- 

 ain, but that the farmers had been able to ren-der 

 its attacks comparatively harmless ; that by sowing 

 early varieties of wheat in good season and on 

 .properly prepared soil, we could get wheat into 

 bloom so early that the midge could do it little 

 harm. The article concluded with the following 

 paragraph : 



" While nearly all the soil of Western New York 

 is well adapted to wheat culture, there are on every 

 farm some fields that are more suitable for wheat 

 than others. We must confine the cultivation of 

 wheat to such laud. Let the portion of the form 

 less favorable to wheat be cultivated with those 

 crops which, when consumed on the farm, furnish 

 the most va]u;ible manure. Let this be used to 

 enrich the soil for wheat. (How this can best be 

 done we leave for future consideration.) Li short, 

 sow early varieties of wheat on the best portions 

 of the farm, underdrain, adopt a judicious system 



of manuring, and our word for it, wheat cultc 

 will not have to be abandoned in Western Nev, 

 York." 



We think the experience of the last three year? 

 has confirmed these opinions — expressed when all 

 was doubt, uncertainty and gloom. This year and 

 last the midge did comparatively little injury to 



Fig. 1. 

 early wheat. The insect has not lefl us. The 

 wheat on late, low, wet land, has suffered materi- 

 ally ; but when wheat has been sown in proper 

 season, on naturally dry or underdrained land, 

 properly cultivated and enriched, and with an early 

 kind of wheat, the crop has been generally good 

 The result is encouraging to the good farmer, and 

 should serve as a stimulus to all. 



The great object has been to get early varietiea 

 of wheat. The Mediterranean or red-beardeoi 



