THE WHEAT CULTTIEIST. 



15 



tainty. But now, many of our best farmers liave met 

 with so many serious failures and disappointments in 

 their wheat crops, that they are sometimes exceedmgly 

 loath to try again. 



The true causes of failure haye not, as yet, been satis- 

 factorily unrayelled. It is a remarkable fact, that the 

 product of good wheat has not only diminished, but the 

 quahty of the grain has greatly deteriorated. Then, 

 it was a common occurrence to see an entire crop of 

 wheat as fair and plump as the best qualities of seed 

 grain at the present day. Scientific farmers and in- 

 telligent laborers haye been anxiously inquiring after 

 the cause: and one has assigned the rayages of the 

 midge as the main cause, while others haye attributed 

 the failure of crops to the increased seyerity of climatic in- 

 fluences following the remoying of om- extensiye forests. 

 Besides these causes, others haye assigned another, to 

 them, plausible cause, which is the diminution of those 

 elements of fertility in the soil which are essential to the 

 formation of the grain. But all these reasons haye been 

 satisfactorily refuted, in most instances, when taken 

 alone. TTe must, therefore, attribute the failm'e — not 

 to any single cause — but to a yariety of such causes as 

 haye been mentioned, operating together to the great 

 injury of the wheat crop. There is one obseryation in 

 which I think eyery intelligent farmer will coincide with 

 me, which is this-: If a piece of new land be sowed 

 with choice seed wheat, and a dense forest protects the 

 field during the winter, and if the midge do not injure 

 the growing crop, the yield will be about as bountiful 

 as crops were forty years ago. These hints suggest 

 what is required in order to succeed in raising a bounti- 

 ful crop of wheat. 



