1861. 



THE ILLmOIS FAHMEE. 



137 



firmed the position of one ?et of disputants, who 

 maintain that by climate, soil, position, and cul- 

 ture, plants may permanently change their char- 

 acteristics, while it covered with confusion some 

 of the most eminent French botanists. Instead 

 of according merit to the simple gardener who 

 for twelve years had patiently labored to solve a 

 great botanical problem, they impeached his ve- 

 racity, and accused him of producing a mere hy- 

 brid, forgetting in their zeal that if so, it was one 

 which possessed the rare quality of reproducing 

 itself. This series of experiments is pronounced 

 by Mr. Klppart of Cincinnati, in his recent ex- 

 haustive worK on the wheat plant, to be pregnant 

 with the most important consequences. He thinks 

 that if wheat must be regarded as of an allied 

 genera of the Egilops, it prove? that botanists 

 were not sufficiently familiar with the character 

 of the plants when the classification was made, 

 and that such identity will reconcile the tradi- 

 tions, the vague and disconnected accounts of the 

 origin of wheat, which in ancient as well as in 

 modern times, was claimed to be found in Baby- 

 lonia, Persia, and Sicily, as in all of them the 

 Egilops is very comer on. 



Wherever the foot of civilized man has pene- 

 trated, this sjmbol of his power has gone with 

 him. California, the latest illustration of this 

 fact, which ten years ago imported vast quanti- 

 ties of flour, is now an exporter of food. A not 

 less curious fact is the number of varieties of 

 wheat, and the appairently capricious taste of 

 of growers in selecting particular sorts for culti- 

 vation. The origin of some of these varieties is 

 equally curious. The Hunter wheat, so exten- 

 sively cultivated in Scotland, sprung from a sin- 

 gle plant accidentally discovered in a large field. 

 The Ohio Lambert wi^eat had a similar origin. 

 Whence these varieties proceed no one can say. 

 A field of the kind long cultivated on the same 

 farm, shows a strange head in its crop. It may 

 topple up higher than its neighbors, or it may be 

 larger and fuller, but from souie cause attracting 

 notice, it is preserved and prffpagated. The ditfi- 

 culty is to say where it came from. A bird has 

 probably p-cked it up in a northern climate 

 which produces a hardier berry, and flying south, 

 his dropped it undigested, on a field already 

 sown, ill season for vegetation to follow. This 

 theory is sustained by the well known fact that 

 any variety of this grain which is tal<en much 

 south of its usual locality and (here sown, will 

 present a more vigorous and hardy appearance 

 than its neighbors that have been already accli- 

 mated. 



It is also known that all the varieties imported 

 from Europe and now the standards in our best 

 wheat regions, came from high latitudes The 

 most popular of them is the Mediterranean, which 

 is in reality D'nish or Norwegian, the common 

 name of MediterraHean being a misnomer. 



The wheat plant is much more sensitive to heat 

 than it is to cold. If it be cteeped for only fif- 

 teen minutes in water ten degrees above the boil- 

 ing point, its vitality is destroyed. In northern 

 latitudes the pi mt lives 180 days, but in Mexico 

 only 100. Hence it is that our extreme Southern 

 States have never been great wheat producing i e- 

 gions. Climate alone forbids it, even if the soil 



were the risht one. Wheat requires a soil rich 

 in phosphates., just as the vine requires lime. 

 Every plant seems to seed a specific stimulant. 

 The tea of Java is inferior because the soil is 

 overloaded with the salts of iron, a cau<e to which 

 the Nankin cotton owes its orange color. Wheat 

 also has its favorites 'n the cataligue of manures, 

 t'riiish agriculture, aided by ch"mi-try, has dis- 

 covered what they are, and having u^ed (bem 

 freely, is rewarded by crops that nearly treble the 

 yield of half a century ago. These are the phos- 

 phates. Distant countries are exhausted of bones 

 to supply them, and quantities of phospbatie fer- 

 ti'izers are manufactured at home, to meet the 

 growing demand. 



Winter killing is constantly complained of by 

 farmers without the causes being accurately 

 known. If sowed too deep, the grain produces 

 so few roots that it cannot afi"ord to lose any of 

 them without perishing. When the ground freezes 

 and thaws many times, at each freezing it cracks 

 open. The roots extend across these cracks and 

 are torn asunder, thus depriving the plant of its 

 necessary nourishment, when in many instances 

 it peri hes outright, or Maintains a sickly, un- 

 profitable existence. Sometimes thecropisthrown 

 entirely out of the grounp when it is sure to per- 

 ish, as the chance of forming new rooi,s is gone. 

 The natural remedy for such calamities i> known 

 to be a deep covering of snow. As the plant, 

 during winter, exerts all its energy in developing 

 roots and leaves, leaving spring to ft im the stalk, 

 and summer to perfect it, a heavy and lasting snow 

 keeps it so warm as to allow this emergency to 

 act, besides eff'ectually protecting its roots from 

 rupture by alternate fr«ezlcg and thawing. But 

 seasons occur when no snowy blankets fall. The 

 artificial remedy is underdraiuing. and if d.ne 

 thoroughly it may be pronounced effectual against 

 winter killing. British agriculture abounds with 

 proof of this, and in this country, since under- 

 draining has been introduced, there is much cou- 

 firmatory evidence. Our severe and variablecli- 

 mate renders it much more necessary than in 

 England. 



Ono of the most marvtUous faculties of the 

 wheat plant is that of sending up a multitude of 

 stalks from a single grain, known &s tillering. It 

 is the secret of its great productiveness. Many 

 experiments have been made to ascertain the lim- 

 it of their faculty, and the results have bem truly 

 wonderful. An English gentleman sowed a few 

 grains of common red wheat on the 2d of June, 

 one of the plants from which had tillered so 

 much by the 8th of August, that he then divided 

 it into eighteen others, all which were separately. 

 In a few weeks so m.iny of these had again mul- 

 tiplied their stalkii, that he had set out sixty- 

 seven altogether to go through the winter. With 

 the spring growth all these began tillering, so 

 that in March and April a new division was made, 

 and the number of plants increased to 500. It 

 was believed that another division might have 

 been made, and that i.; would have increased the 

 number to 2,000. The 500 grew most vigorously, 

 exceeding plants as ordinarily cultivated. When 

 harvested, a single plant yielded over 100 ears, 

 and the whole number of ears produced was 

 21,169, or more than forty to each divided plant, 



