222 



THE WHEAT CTJLTTIRIST. 



productive. In the spring, let the ground be thoroughly 

 harrowed, or scarified with a two-horse cultivator, with- 

 out ploughing ; and wheat will grow heavy and stand up 

 remarkably well. 



An important consideration is to be able to cart the 

 clay and muck in the winter, when teams and vehicles 

 will not pack the mellow seed-bed ; and also when the 

 labors of the field are not urgent. It is seldom con- 

 venient to perform this kind of work during the growing 

 season. Besides this, one grand point to be secured is, 

 the ameliorating influence of the freezing and thawing 

 of the clay, by which coarse clods are all reduced to a 

 fine tilth. When teams and laborers have but httle to 

 do, time can be very profitably employed in carting 

 earth to top-dress wheat fields. The di^essing of clay, or 

 clay loam, will render the soil more productive for other 

 kinds of grain and grass, also as well as for wheat. 



Seeding wtthout PLorGHma. 



Light soils are frequently ploughed to their serious 

 injury, for a crop of wheat. My father and his neigh- 

 bors as well as myself, have raised the most bountiful 

 crops of wheat, that any of us ever produced, on land 

 that was simply harrowed thoroughly. We were all 

 satisfied that the crops were much heavier than they 

 would have been had the ground been ploughed. I 

 have in mind numerous instances, in 'New Jersey, in 

 which the soil was a deep light loam, covered with a 

 very thin mould, where all the vegetable matter was 

 turned six inches below the surface. The result was, 

 that the crop of grain was amazingly light ; whereas, had 

 the ground simply been worked with a wheel cultivator, 



