132 BOARD OF AGRICLTURE. 



yation necessary to produce it, and the social and political 

 independence resulting from producing this article of prime 

 necessity, we will answer these questions by presenting the 

 following table, showing the probable average cost per acre of 

 its cultivation in this State : — 



Cost of ploughing, per acre, .... 



Harrowing, ....... 



Seed and sowing, . . . . . * . 



Interest on land at $50, and taxes at $1 per hundred, 

 Manure, 



Total cost, $19 50 



The average yield is supposed to be twenty bushels per 

 acre, and the average price $1.50 per bushel, making 

 the value of an acre of wheat, $30 00 



Profit on an acre, $10 50 



In this no estimate is made of the value of the straw, or the 

 cost of harvesting the crop. This estimate pays for all the 

 labor, manure, taxes, and twenty-six per cent, on the capital 

 iuvested in the land. 



It cannot be objected to this estimate that the profit of raising 

 wheat should be very much less, in consequence of its liability 

 to failure, because it is a more certain crop than potatoes, 

 equally sure as oats or rye, and nearly so as corn. And 

 besides, an item of much importance which has not been brought 

 into the account is the fact that wheat is the best crop with 

 whicli to stock down to grass, (unless it be barley.) With the 

 farmer who is pursuing a system of rotation, or whose crop of 

 hay enters largely into his account of profit or loss, this fact 

 is one which under no circumstances should be overlooked. 

 Some writer has said that the cultivation of the wheat plant is 

 the distinctive mark showing that a people have passed from the 

 nomadic into the civilized state. And tliat in countries where 

 its cultivation has fallen into disuse, there has civilization also 

 retrograded ; and were it not for commerce with enliglitened 

 and refined nations, they would speedily relapse into all the 

 horrors of absolute barbarism. " Truly," he says, " the wheat 



