WHEAT. 83 



tained, wliich will be the second or third year. 

 Sometimes excellent varieties are discovered acci- 

 dentally, as the celebrated hedge-wheat of England, 

 the first ear of which was found growing in a hedge 

 in Sussex ; and the swamp or Hint wheat of this 

 country, which originated from a few ears found ia 

 a swamp near Rome in this state. 



In few things are the chymist in his analysis of 

 soils, and the farmer in the actual tilling the earth, 

 better agreed than in the kinds of soil best adapted 

 to produce wheat. Rich clays, or those in which 

 sand and lime are so blended as to resemble in their 

 constituents marl, when properly combined with 

 vegetable or animal matter, are found to be the best 

 soils for wheat. Next to these, heavy loams, or 

 those in which silicious matter preponderates, but 

 which contain sufficient clay to make them reten- 

 tive, when united with the proper proportions of nu- 

 tritive vegetable or animal matter, are the most 

 productive. One of the best soils for wheat in Eng- 

 land, analyzed by Davy, gave of carbonate of lime 

 28 parts ; sihca, 32 parts ; clay or alumina, 29 parts ; 

 and animal or vegetable matter, 11 parts. Perhaps 

 one of the surest tests in determining the qualities of 

 a soil for wheat, or its fertility generally, is to as- 

 certain its power of absorbing )noisture. This may 

 be known by drying fineh'-pulverized earth to a tem- 

 perature of 212^, and then exposing it to air satu- 

 rated with moisture ; and that whicli under the same 

 circumstances acquires the most weight in a given 

 time, by the absorption of water from the atmo- 

 sphere, will be found the most fertile soil. Some 

 soils treated in this way will in an hour gain 18 or 

 20 parts in a thousand ; while others (and these are 

 always barren, or nearly so) will gain in the same 

 time only from two to five parts. Perhaps the most 

 fertile soils in the United States are those based on 

 limestone strata, as the principal part of central 

 Kentucky, and the limestone zone of Western New- 



