24 
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Preparing I.ancl for Wheat. 
BY HENRY STEWART. 
The experience of the past winter over 
the whole of the United States and Canada 
has been exceedingly instructive. The 
greater part of the crop is a disastrous fail¬ 
ure. But here and there may be seen fields 
which show a good stand and will return a 
satisfactory yield alongside of others from 
wdnch the farmer will not get back his 
seed. What is the cause of this difference? 
It cannot in these cases be altogether the 
bad season, nor the character of the soil; it 
can only be in the method of preparing the 
soil for the crop. It has been said and 
pio%edso often, that weather and season 
are of secondary importance to the good 
farmer whose land is well manured and 
whose seed is sown in good season, that it 
has become an axiom in the practice of 
agriculture, and when one sees a good crop 
in an unfavorable season, the idea immedi¬ 
ately occurs to the practical man that the 
soil has been prepared in an excellent man¬ 
ner. The question then occurs, how should 
the soil be prepared for the wheat crop, so 
that it may be able to resist the dangers 
of an unfavorable winter, and evade the 
lisks and losses to which the crop upon ill 
prepared soil is exposed. In considering 
this question the peculiar character of the 
wheat plant and the effect of exposure to 
an inclement season are the two main 
points for study. Wheat has a peculiar 
habit of growth. Under favorable condi¬ 
tions, the plant throws out two sets of roots, 
one in the subsoil from the seed and the 
other at the surface from the crown of the 
main root. When the soil is thoroughly 
pulverized to a sufficient depth, which 
should be not less than three inches, and 
the seed is deposited about an inch and a 
half below the surface, there grows an up¬ 
ward spire and a downward root. The 
root is the principal thing. Upon the nec¬ 
essary growth of this, depend the nutrition 
of the plant and the formation and strength 
of a certain secondary set of roots which 
are not injured by the alternate freezing 
and thawing of the soil, or the intense cold 
of an unfavorable winter. The main root 
descends into the soil and a set of lateral 
roots spread from it in every direction. 
These are the feeding roots of the young 
spire which forms a single stalk. But the 
habit of wheat is to throw out a large num¬ 
ber of side roots near the surface of the 
ground, and from these roots the secondary 
shoots or stools grow and form the fuller 
developed plant. A healthy wheat plant 
growing in good soil, well prepared for the 
seed, will throw out from ten to forty or 
more of these offsets and form a strong 
bunch or stool which takes an exceedingly 
film hold upon the soil. Such plants are 
not injured by the severest weather during 
the winter, because the roots are strong 
enough to resist the heaving action of the 
frost; and because they have a firm hold 
upon the soil, and the abundant herbage 
also protects the soil and prevents it from 
being acted upon injuriously by the fre¬ 
quent changes of the weather. 
Now this growth of root and plant can¬ 
not take place in the soil unless this has 
been properly prepared and fitted for it. 
Nature works always according to rule. 
Plant growth takes place in accordance 
with precise and unfailing conditions. The 
principle involved in this unfailing law of 
nature has been clearly laid down in the 
words: “men do not gather grapes from 
thorns, nor figs from thistles,” and it is 
equally true that men do not gather good 
crops unless they comply with all the laws 
of nature, and provide the right conditions 
for plant growth. And as regards the 
preparation of the soil for a perfect growth 
of the wheat plant we find that it is nec¬ 
essary to have a perfectly mellow seed bed 
of compact soil to a depth of at least three 
to five inches in which the root growth re¬ 
quired for a good crop of wheat can take 
place and in which the roots may so spread 
and take firm hold that they cannot be 
seriously injured by stress of weather in 
the severest winter. 
But, it may be asked, why it is partic¬ 
ularly necessary that the soil should be thus 
pulverized and mellowed to fit it for the 
growth and safety of wheat ? There is 
always a good reason for everything, and 
there is a reason, or several of them, for 
this. Roots require to be in close contact 
with soil or they will perish as soon as the 
