124 THE COMPLETE FARMER 



winter gram ; spread on evenly twenty common cart loads 

 or upwards of stable and yard manure to the acre ; ploug'h 

 it in just three inches deep and no more; harrow it length- 

 wise of the furrow ; cross mark for the rows, three and a half 

 feet for the small, or four feet for the large kind of corn : let 

 the corn be properly tended, by keeping the ground loose 

 with the plough and hoe and free from weeds ; and if the 

 season is not very unpropitious, you may calculate on a 

 large crop. But if the ground is hard and stony, so that it 

 cannot be ploughed shallow as above mentioned, then plough 

 as shallow as possible, and spread on the manure afterwards 

 and harrow it in, and proceed as above directed; the crop 

 will not probably disappoint your expectations. As soon as 

 the corn has become ripe, or too hard to roast, and if possi- 

 ble before ii is touched with frost, cut it up, bind and carry 

 it out of the field, and shock it in the usual way. If you 

 have drawn the earth around your corn into hills, (which I 

 would advise never to do in any case,) harrow the hills down 

 with a heavy harrow, plough three inches deep, and spread 

 on evenly four or five loads of well rotted manure,"^ and sow 

 three pecks of good clear wheat to the acre, and plough it in 

 with a light horse plough ; and unless something disastrous 

 happens, the summer following your garner may be filled 

 with the finest wheat. The same directions will apply to 

 ground planted with potatoes. 1 would insure a crop sown 

 on ground thus managed for ten per cent, less than if sown 

 on a summer fallow in the ordinary way.' 



Wheat is subject to several diseases ; the most common 

 and generally injurious are mildew or rust and smut. Some 

 writers assert that mildew is caused by a minute parasitic 

 fungus or mushroom, which fastens on the leaves and glumes 

 or stems of the living plant. The roots of this fungus, in- 

 tercepting the S3p intended by nature for the nourishment 

 of the grain, render it lean and shrivelled, rob it of its flour, 

 and the straw becomes black and rotten, unfit for fodder. 



Mr. Butler, in The Farmer's Mamcal, says, in substance, 

 that the rust on wheat commences in July, at the time of 

 the filling of the kernel in the ear, when a combination of 

 heat and moisture bring into action rich manures, and forces 



* It has general!}'' been advised not to apply manure to a wheat crop 

 the same year the wheat is sown, but the small quantity mentioned above 

 •would, perhaps, serve as a top-dressins:, without giving too great luxuri- 

 ance to the straw, and cause it to be mildewed or blasted. 



