GRAIN CROPS. 79 



there would sure to be good crops of wheat. Such an idea was 

 erroneous. But of course the supply of rain affects the 

 crop in a great measure. Wheat contained water, as 

 hydrogen and oxygen, 45.86 parts in each 100. These are 

 two of the gases that form water, it might be rain or 

 irrigation water. Thus wheat is made up of some 46 parts 

 of moisture. It was necessary to have at least five inches of 

 water, and seven inches would be better, before crops of 

 wheat, of about 35 bushels to the acre, could be raised. 

 Then, from the air, the grain absorbed carbon to the extent 

 of 44 '43 parts in each 100. So that altogether from the 

 atmosphere and rain, wheat obtained some 90 parts of its 

 whole bulk. Thus, it was seen how bountiful was nature. Of 

 lime, soda, chlorine, sulphuric acid, magnesia, iron and silica 

 (or sand), other ingredients essential to the growing of wheat, 

 4 per cent, were absorbed, and there was an abundance of 

 them in the soils of this country. But the other six parts 

 had, after a crop or two was reaped, to be supplied by man 

 unless in very exceptional cases, for the crop exhausted the 

 substances that composed these six parts more quickly 

 than nature provides, as a rule. Nitrogen, or ammonia, must 

 be supplied. Wheat required it in the proportion of 2'6 in 

 the 100. The Gas Company of Sydney were sending 

 away immense quantities of this substance in the form of 

 sulphate of ammonia, which could be purchased in the 

 colony cheaper than in Britain, where thousands of pounds 

 worth were purchased yearly. Wheat got some nitrogen 

 from the atmosphere, but not sufficient to make a paying 

 crop. Then the wheat required of phosphoric acid 1'28 

 parts, of potash T3, of lime '79. If it were to rain 100 inches 

 each year, not one part of these ingredients would be sup- 

 plied. And yet, without phosphoric acid and lime, it was an 

 impossibility to get wheat. But bone manures supplied 

 them. He had noticed that some new land of the Namoi 

 Pastoral Company had given a yield of 45 bushels to the 

 acre, and the old land had only yielded 22 bushels. The 

 cause of this was that there were phosphoric acid and lime 

 in the new land, whereas it was reduced considerably in the 

 old. Unless the wheat found these substances in the soil, 

 a large crop was not possible, and the constitution of the 



