FIELD, ORCHARD, AND GARDEN CROPS 



149 



lizers. Lime is beneficial, making plant food in the soil avail- 

 able. 



Place in Rotation. One of the best and cheapest ways of 

 fertilizing wheat is by preceding it with a nitrogen-collecting, 

 deep-rooted crop, such as clover or cowpeas; this leaves the soil 

 firm and the surface well supplied with plant food. After a legume, 

 wheat needs potash and phosphoric acid. It is often sowed after 

 tobacco to utilize the plant 

 food which that leaves in 

 the surface soil. 



Wheat should be fol- 

 lowed by a deep-rooted, 

 strong-feeding crop. The 

 worst crops to precede or 

 follow it are other small 

 grains and corn, which 

 make practically the same 

 demands on the soil. 



Varieties. There are 

 hundreds of varieties of 

 wheat developed chiefly 

 by care, cultivation, and 

 selection. A Pennsylvania 

 farmer, passing one day 

 through his field of bearded 

 wheat, found a plant that 

 was beardless. He saved 

 the seed, and from that one plant was produced a productive 

 beardless variety, of which thousands of bushels are grown every 

 year. 



Certain varieties have been brought from Russia which have 



Courtesy of Ohio Agricultural Station 



BEARDLESS AND BEARDED WHEAT 



