Management of WJicat. 



tinguished by the appellation of good wheat-land." It is well 

 Ivnown, however, that wheat will grow to high perfection upon 

 almost every soil, when the land is properly prepared for it. 



Whatever may be the nature of the soil^. it should always be the 

 aim of the farmer to grow full crops : partial and sometimes ex- 

 tensive failures w411 even then but too often occur ; but to neglect 

 making the best-known preparation, or only to prepare for half a 

 crop, is an ill-judged notion, and has a direct tendency to unre- 

 munerating farming. 



In order to prepare for luxuriant crops, the land, when of a 

 wet nature, must be liberated from all surplus water by proper 

 under-draining; it must be clean from couch-grass and all other 

 kinds of rubbish ; not tired out by cross or improper cropping ; 

 must be judiciously manured, but not overdone with it, inas- 

 much as too much manure causes the growth of an unnaturally 

 large quantity of straw, which, if the season happens to be wet or 

 stormy, will be crippled and flat on the ground before the ears 

 could come to perfection. When this happens, it both lessens the 

 quantity, and very much deteriorates the quality of the grain. The 

 land being otherwise well prepared, it is perhaps upon the whole 

 more desirable to have a little deficiency of manure than too much, 

 as, if necessary, a partial top-dressing may always be added in the 

 spring. The land must not be wheated oftener than the soil will 

 admit : some soils will bear it more frequently than others, and it 

 is essentially necessary that the kind of seed should be adapted to 

 the description of soil upon which it is to be propagated. An 

 entire change of seed from hot land to cold, and from cold land to 

 hot, wull always be found advantageous, and especially from hot to 

 cold soils, in which case it will frequently bring the harvest nearly 

 a week earlier. In both cases it is generally allowed to increase 

 the yield, improve the sample, and preserve the stock in greater 

 purity. 



It has now become very general to sow wheat after clover upon 

 all classes of soils. This is doubtless one of the best systems of 

 growing wheat : the roots of clover after becoming decomposed 

 afford much nutriment to the growing wheat, and the firmness 

 given to the land is another great recommendation. It has been 

 frequently observed when the plant of clover has been deficient 

 that the wheat-plant fails also. This, however, is not always the 

 case : at the same time it serves to show a peculiar adaptation, on 

 many soils, to the growth of wheat after clover. There are 

 several other methods of preparing land, varying according to the 

 nature of soils, which oftentimes produce crops of the first order. 

 Some of these are as follows — 



1st, Upon clayey soils, a full summer's fallow is occasionally 

 resorted to as a preparation for the wheat-crop on much of the 



