16 



THE WHEAT CULTUEIST. 



In the year 1861-62, I was ruralizing in Monroe Co., 

 ]Sr. Y., when I penned the following suggestion, touch- 

 ing the culture of wheat in the wheat-producing part 

 of the State : 



In the county of Monroe, thirty or more years ago, 

 raising wheat was attended with remarkably good suc- 

 cess. Indeed, wheat was the great staple with farmers 

 for many successive years. Many old farmers with 

 whom I conversed, pointed out to me whole farms, here 

 and there, and many large fields, where the yield was 

 seldom less than forty bushels of most beautiful wheat 

 per acre; and, in many instances, the yield would be 

 fifty bushels. But at the present time, on the same soil, 

 the yield is expressed by any number from eight to 

 thirty bushels per acre. 



We cannot raise wheat now, as we could once," was 

 the oft-repeated expression among old farmers ; and the 

 reason assigned, usually, was the " insects — ^the wheat 

 midge makes such ravages in the crop." Thirty or forty 

 years ago, they had all the advantages of a most excellent 

 virgin soil, which was as well adapted to wheat as any 

 other crop ; and had there been proper care exercised 

 with reference to keeping the soil in a good state of fer- 

 tility, by making and applying as much barnyard manure 

 as was practicable, there never would have been such a 

 decrease in the number of bushels per acre, as farmers 

 now talk of. Old farmers have told that " here on these 

 fields we once could raise three crops of wheat in succes- 

 sion, and the third would be fully equal to the first." Of 

 course, under such a system of farm management, the 

 most productive soil that can be found in the country 

 would fail to produce a remunerating crop, after so many 

 years of hard cropping. I was assured that thirty years 



