AND RURAL ECONOMIST. 123 



extreme shortness of our spring, so that it is difficult for our 

 farmers to complete the work which is absolutely necessary 

 to be done, after the frost is out of the ground, and before 

 the season of planting is over. If, therefore, any work, as 

 the sowing of wheat, can be advantageously postponed till 

 the autunm, it is of great importance. The winter wheat is 

 less liable to injury from insects than the summer; mine has 

 never suifered from them. It affords good fall feed, and the 

 larger quantity of roots and stubble to be ploughed in makes 

 the land in a better state for the next crop. The grain is 

 heavier, and the same number of pounds will yield a larger 

 quantity of flour, and of a much superior quality. From my 

 experience, I should recommend that winter wheat should 

 not be sowed later than the middle of September, that the 

 soil on which it is sowed should be of a light loam, and that 

 about five pecks of seed be sou^n to the acre. I have also 

 found the use of plaster on wheat advantageous, as also roll- 

 ing the wheat, after it is weli up. 



To procure new varieties of wheats, (says Mr. Loudon,) 

 the ordinary mode is to select from a field a spike or spikes 

 from, the same stalk which has the qualities sought for, such 

 as larger grains, thinner chaft, stiffer strawy a tendency to 

 eirliness or lateness, &:c. ; and picking out the best grains 

 from such ear or ears, to sow them in suitable soil, in an 

 open, airy part of a garden. When the produce is ripe, se- 

 lect the best ears, and from these the best grains, and sow 

 these ; and so on, till a bushel or more is obtained, which 

 may then be sown in a field apart from any other wheat. In 

 this way many of the varieties of the common winter wheat 

 have been obtained. =^ Other varieties have assumed their 

 distinctive marks from having been long cultivated on the 

 same scil and climate, and take local names, as the Hertford- 

 shire red, Essex white, &c. 



Marshall (Yorkshire) mentions a case in which a man of 

 accurate observation, having in a piece of wheat perceived a 

 plant of uncommon strength and luxuriance, diffusing its 

 branches on every side, marked it, at harvest gathered it 

 separately, and thus introduced a new and superior variety. 



Jonathan Townsend, of Andover, Connecticut, gives the 

 following directions for obtaining good crops of wheat, pre- 

 ceded by Indian corn, 



' Select a piece of ground suitable for Indian corn and 



* See also N. E. Farmer, vol. x. p. 309. 



