ESSEX SOCIETY. 31 



ter wheat is now so successful. Fall sown, or what is called 

 winter wheat, is, as far as we learn, everywhere more produc- 

 tive and less liable to blight and other causes of failnre than 

 that which is sown in the spring. And from reason and anal- 

 ogy, we should presume it would be so. 



Annual weeds injure but little fall sown grain, and winter 

 rye is certainly more productive than that sown in the spring. 

 The culture of wheat in England and on the Continent of 

 Europe, on soils which, like our own, require the restoration in 

 the form of manure of some of the elements of fertility in 

 general, or which are specially needed by wheat, affords better 

 rules for our study, than the practice of those in our own country 

 who cultivate virgin soils. I see no reason why the following, 

 extracted and abridged from Low's Elements of Agriculture, are 

 not nearly as well adapted to New England as they are to Old 

 England. After enumerating and describing the various kinds 

 of wheat cultiyated in Great Britain, he says: " Of the species 

 which have been enumerated, greatly the most important in 

 the rural economy of this country is the winter wheat." 



" Wheat is of very general cultivation on all classes of soils. 

 But the soils best suited to it are those which are more or less 

 clayey. So peculiarly is wheat suited to the stiffer soils thai 

 these are familiarly termed wheat soils. The soils of the light- 

 est class are tlie least suited to wheat — and are better devoted 

 to/)ther cereals, rye, oats, &c. As wheat is the most valuable 

 of cereals, so it requires greater care to produce it. It is an 

 error to sow with a corn crop any land which is out of order, 

 but this error is greater and more hurtful in the case of wheat, 

 than of the other cereals. Wheat is always sown before win- 

 ter, when the land can be prepared to receive it. The best 

 period for sowing is from about the middle to the end of Sep- 

 tember. The early part of October is well suited to the sow- 

 ing of wheat, and it may be continued to the middle of Novem- 

 ber. When sown broadcast the land must receive several har- 

 rowings, but no more than are sufficient to cover the seed, it 

 being better in the case of wheat that there be a certain 

 roughness of the clod. No sooner is the harrowing executed, 

 than the land is to be water furrowed in the followinsr manner : 



