56 



No. XV. 



Too high the Poet cannot raise his strain, 



Who speaks of Wheat our most important grain, 



Without attention to manure and soil 



The fanner's trouble will be useless toil, 



Attend then to the lessons I impress, 



And may kind Providence your labours bless. 



The soil best suited to wheat, is that which rests 

 upon an absorbent bottom, and whose texture is be- 

 tween Hght sand and heavy h7ara ; Imt this is not ])y 

 any means the only description of soil on which it 

 can be successfully cultivated; for since the introduc- 

 tion of clover and turnips, hght soils are found to 

 yield good crops of it. Even on sandy land after 

 clover a reasonably good crop may be had. Most 

 parts of this county are unfit for wheat, because its 

 soil, for the most part, is without any proportion of 

 lime, which is absolutely necessary to the luxuriancy 

 of wheat. Lime, as well as animal manure, produces 

 the gluten of wheat. The crops of this grain which 

 grow in the neighbouring counties of Carlow and 

 Kilkenny (in the soils of which lime abounds,) are 

 vastly greater at all times than in this county. 



On ricli loam, wheat may be cultivated every se- 

 cond year after manured green crops ; but where the 

 improved system of green cropping is not pursued, a 

 fallow (such an one as I have described in a former 

 number,) will be necessary once in four, six, or eight 

 years, according to seasons and circumstances ; and 

 manure should either be applied to that fallow for the 

 first crop of wheat or laid on the wheat stulible for a 

 crop of drilled beans, which insures the succeeding 

 crop of wheat; ])ut on thos^ light soils on which oc- 

 casional wheat cropping- may take place, summer fal- 

 lowing need never be resorted to, because a crop of 

 turnips, which admits every branch of the cleaning 



