150 



THE WHEAT CTJLTUEIST. 



quite a ' tolerable catch ' of timothy ; over the one acre 

 it never came np sufficiently to be visible. Instead of 

 the soil ' drying out,' it actually became more moist 

 after each ploughing." 



Remakks. — The reader must recollect that the soil 

 alluded to in the foregoing paragraph was a very light, 

 sandy soil, and in a poor state of fertility. By proper 

 cultivation, with a dressing of rich barn-yard manure and 

 red clover, the yield of wheat could be increased two- 

 fold, with less labor than was required to produce such 

 a light crop as the writer has reported. 



The Object of Summer Fallows. 



J. J. Thomas, associate editor of the " Cultivator 

 and Country Gentleman," writes thus in relation to 

 summer fallows : "Of late years we see but few sum- 

 mer fallows — they seem to have ' gone out of fashion ' 

 Avith the wheat crop ; still they have their uses, and we 

 will give a brief statement of the same. 



" The object of summer fallowing is threefold — to 

 clean, to deepen, and to mellow the soil. 



" 1. Clean culture is desirable; because weeds detract 

 from the perfection of the cultivated crops grown at 

 the same time on the same soil. The useless plants 

 take up the elements which would otherwise be taken 

 up by the useful — a trite statement, but one too little 

 heeded by the farmer. Hence the summer fallow is 

 employed to free the soil of weeds — (a weed, it should 

 be remembered, is ' any plant out of place ') — by the 

 destruction of their growth and of their seeds which 

 may be contained in the soil. A true fallow is hare of 

 all vegetable growth — it rests from the production of 



