1920.] 



More Wheat. 



337 



Quick Harvesting. — The last point on which we may insist 

 is the necessity for ample power and some degree of hustle 

 at the harvesting. There are seasons, like 1918 proved in 

 the north and west, when the weather is uniformly adverse, 

 but in most years the determined farmer can get his wheat 

 safely stacked in good condition if he takes full advantage 

 of the intervals of fine weather that are granted to him. It 

 is here, as with early sowing, that the tractor can be made 

 so useful. Again, wlieat can safely be cut a little earUer 

 than is the custom without the danger of the loss of quality 

 that, for example, attends the premature cutting of barley. 



Special {ivk%e9,— Heavy Clay. — Returning now to special cases 

 that have been enumerated above, on the heavy clay lands 

 the preparation either of old grass land or temporary leys 

 should begin at once with a deep steam ploughing as soon 

 as the hay crop has been secured. Unless conditions are 

 favourable it is generally necessary to do this first preparation 

 of land with steam or with one of the heavier types of tractor, 

 because either with horses or the lighter tractors it is difficult 

 to make the plough hold the ground. When the land is still 

 too hard to plough a cultivator may be used. What is wanted 

 is to get the land turned over and the clods baked through 

 with the sun. As soon as the soil is dried out and a considerable 

 proportion of the grass has been killed, a second cross cultivation 

 should follow, and here, again, it is generally necessary to use 

 steam or the tractor, as horses find it difiicult to work on the 

 rough clods. With any sort of luck in the way of weather, 

 a third cultivation ought to leave the land ready for sowing 

 at the end of September or early in October. 



The use of wide drills, harrows and rollers drawn by 

 mechanical power is necessary if the costs are to be properly 

 kept down. As has already been mentioned, basic slag should 

 be sown before or with the seed. Machines have been devised 

 which combine a clod crusher with a seed and manure drill, 

 and to which harrows can be attached, so that the whole of the 

 latter operations can be completed at a single stroke. It 

 is to the extended use of machines of this type that the farmer 

 must look for rendering wheat growing, and indeed the cultiva- 

 tion of any cereal, profitable. 



Lighter Land. — The same considerations apply to the second 

 class of land, the rather Hghter class in the Midlands, but 

 where these have been habitually worked only to a ver}^ shallow 

 depth of 4 or 5 in. it may not be wise to plough so deeply 

 at first. It is essential to break up the pan which long-continued 



