52 WHEAT CULTURE. 



July tenth to September fifteenth. The disk harrow or 

 sod-cutter was used and the sod all cut finely ; it was 

 then 'back set,' that is, the plow was run under some- 

 what deeper, and the cut sods were buried under the 

 loose, turned-up soil. On this seed-bed spring wheat was 

 sown from the sixth to the twentieth of April. Thus 

 treated the prairie land will yield five to seven bushels, 

 per acre, more than with the usual single plowing. W. 

 L. Nevins had six hundred acres of spring wheat, near 

 Tracy, Minnesota, five hundred and forty of which were 

 treated like the above, and it seemed to give a yield of 

 about eight bushels, per acre, more than that with the 

 single plowing. He sowed the Fife wheat, from the 

 sixth to the sixteenth of April, fifty quarts of seed to 

 the acre." 



Double plowing, cutting the sod finely and covering it 

 with the rich, friable prairie, making a loam-bed of the 

 whole, was certainly a paying operation. 



PLOWING IN THE GULF STATES. 



With an improved cultivation, deeper, finer plowing 

 and pulverization, much more of the lands of Florida 

 and Georgia can be made to produce good yields of 

 wheat. But before the deep plowing is done it is neces- 

 sary to have the land well underdrained to the depth of 

 at least two feet, in order to secure the advantages of the 

 deep plowing ; and the plowing should be done with 

 good, heavy two-horse or three-mule teams, then thor- 

 oughly harrowed and rolled, to compeletely pulverize the 

 land. This treatment will insure a good crop of wheat 

 on all the ordinarily fair lands of the Gulf States, but 

 the single-mule plowing, which, we are informed, gener- 

 ally prevails there, will never secure uniformly good 

 crops of wheat, there or elsewhere. Land must be well 

 drained and deeply tilled to produce wheat. 



