120 THE COBIPLETE FARMER 



to SOW wheat next in rotation after clover, as has been re- 

 commended. 



It is well known that our lands, where the soil is at all 

 suitable, will produce good crops of wheat when first cleared 

 from their native growth of wood ; but after having been 

 tilled for some years, they generally yield wheat with diffi- 

 culty, and it is often found impossible to raise it by any of 

 the modes commonly adopted for wheat culture. In most 

 parts of Massachusetts, and in some parts of New Hamp- 

 shire and Vermont, the farmers scarcely ever attempt to 

 raise wheat, and still more rarely succeed when they do at- 

 tempt it. Yet, we believe, wheat was a common and pro- 

 fitable crop in those places in the early period of their set- 

 tlement. In process of time, however, the land became ex- 

 hausted of its wheat-bearing faculty, and our farmers were 

 forced nearly to forego its cultivation. The same variations 

 and appearances have likewise been observed in Europe. 

 Wheat countries, by continued cultivation, have become 

 almost incapable of yielding wheat. The cause and remedy 

 of this partial barrenness, this falling off, with regard to par- 

 ticular plants, was alike involved in obscurity, till modern 

 discoveries in chemistry threw light on the subject. It has 

 been found that the texture of every soil is defective unless 

 there is a mixture of three kinds of earth, viz., clay, sand, 

 and lime ; and that lime, in some of its combinations, exists 

 in wheat, both in the straw and kernel. In some soils, fer- 

 tile in other respects, lime may either have no existence, or 

 be found in very minute portions, and be soon exhausted. 

 If lime be a necessary constituent of wheat, and is not in 

 the soil where wc attempt to raise wheat, it must be sup- 

 plied by art, or wheat will not grow. Or if native lime 

 exists in the soil in small quantities, the land may bear 

 wheat till the lime is exhausted, and then become incapable 

 of producing that plant, till a fresh supply of lime, marl, pul- 

 verized bones, or some other calcareous substance, is added. 

 Mr. Young says, (Letters of Agricola, p. 299,) ' It cannot 

 be denied, that since the plentiful use of lime has been 

 adopted, lands in Europe will produce wheat which other- 

 wise were incapable of bearing it ;' and quotes several in- 

 stances in proof of this assertion. Dr. Anderson likewise 

 gives an account of a field which had a top-dressing of lime 

 for the purpose of raising wheat, but the lime, by accident, 

 was not applied to a small patch of the field, and in that 

 patch there was no crop, while every part of the field to 



