38 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
southern. It then, for the first time, occurred to us, that since 
we had used the southern seed, which we have done for the last 
three years, our clover had been much more winterkilled than for¬ 
merly, when we raised the large kind. We should be glad to 
learn the experience of others in this matter. 
SPELTA—OR SPELT WHEAT. 
B. F. Hutchinson Esq., of Middle Island, Suffolk, has asked 
us to make known, through the Cultivator, the mode of culture, 
product, &tc., of this species of grain. As we have no practical 
knowledge in its culture, our answer can only apply to a part of 
his inquires. 
Spelt wheat is distinguished by its stout straw, which is almost 
solid, and by its strong spikes, with the chaff partially awned. 
The chaff adheres close to the grain, and is not easily separated. 
The grain is light and yields but little flour, but yields a greater por¬ 
tion of gluten than common wheat, and hence is superior, in pastry 
and confectionary. It is the principal wheat raised in Suabia and 
the north of Switzerland, and is considerably cultivated in France, 
Spain and Italy. It is also grown in Pennsylvania. It is sown in 
spring, and ripens in July and August. It is sown on lands, ge¬ 
nerally, which are too poor for other wheat, and on mountainous 
or stony grounds. We will thank our friend Mr. Grove, or some 
of our Pennsylvania patrons, to furnish us with a statement of the 
ordinary product and relative value of this grain. 
_CORRESPONDENCE._ 
Buffalo, March 10th, 1835. 
J. Buel, Sir—You will recollect that during the evening I late¬ 
ly spent at your hospitable mansion, while discussing the new 
English theory of “ the matter thrown off in the soil by a species 
of plant, being poisonous to others of the same kind if cultivated 
in succession,” by which rotation becomes absolutely necessary, I 
dissented, with you, from the doctrine, as altogether inapplicable 
to many American soils, particularly those of the western coun¬ 
try. And I will here remark, in confirmation of an opinion which 
I have long entertained, that much of the current English expe¬ 
rience as well as theory in agriculture, is altogether inapplicable 
and useless in our own country, and to succeed thoroughly, the 
American farmer should, excepting what relates to broadly esta¬ 
blished and universal principles, depend on American experience 
alone. 
Although rotation of crops, as a system, has been adopted by 
the best agriculturists in the older settled parts of the U. States, 
and is no doubt the best which can be pursued in the primitive 
soils, yet large portions of our country would actually suffer by 
such a process. I incline to think that it has yet to be settled, 
what is the most profitable system of agriculture applicable to a 
large portion of our new states and soils, for they have as yet been 
so imperfectly cultivated, and with so little regular system, that 
the full nature and capacity of those soils are little understood. 
Yielding, as they usually do, abundant crops with slight culture, 
their occupants have so far been content with their present produc¬ 
tions, without examining by thorough experiments what more may 
be done. 
The soils I now speak of, are the great secondary regions of 
western New-York, and which extend most around the great lakes, 
and down the Mississippi valley. These are the most productive 
of our northern soils, and to the present time are mostly cultivated 
without manure, or the aid of artificial stimulants, by which pro¬ 
cess the primitive soils would be altogether unproductive. But to 
the question of succession of crops, in opposition to the above 
quoted theory. 
Throughout a large district of western New-York, wheat is the 
staple article of cultivation. The lands which produce it, although 
good for other grains, roots, pulse, and grasses, yield wheat in 
abundance, and therefore they are for that purpose the most profit¬ 
able. With many farmers, for forty years past and more, it has 
been for several consecutive years the only crop of their fields. 
Again, they have let their fields rest every other crop, and fallowing 
for seed the season succeeding the harvest, without laying the lands 
into grass. Others again have laid their lands into clover, sowing 
the seed in the spring following the sowing of the wheat; pas¬ 
tured the fields after harvest, and the following year fallowed as 
usual. All these different modes have succeeded well, an^jnany 
instances may be cited where wheat has fcLowed for many years 
in continued succession with equal success, and abundant crops. 
Many wheat soils too, the most unpromising at first, continue to 
yield without manure or stimulant of any kind, and have constant¬ 
ly improved from their first cultivation. A portion of the best 
wheat lands in our state, ljing in Livingston, Genesee, Monroe 
and Erie counties, were for years unsettled and neglected; and 
long after the softer and better timbered lands were subdued, were 
these stony lime lands cleared up and put into cultivation. They 
are now the surest lands for a crop of good wheat. Here the 
quality may be depended on, when the blast, or rust, or a shrink¬ 
ing of the berry prevails with the wheat of the softer soils. This 
is also the case with large tracts of land near lake Erie, in Ohio, 
also in Michigan, and further west. Here indeed the question 
might be opened to the inquiry, as to how far lime may be the na¬ 
tive soil for wheat ; and why it is that the continual ploughing of 
limestone lands, and their exposure to the atmosphere, promotes 
fertility, which is indeed the fact. But as my present object is to 
state facts for the purpose of disapproving an unsound but plausible 
theory, I must omit the subject for perhaps some future commu¬ 
nication. 
These different varieties of soils, appear each in degrees more 
than another, peculiarly friendly to the production of certain crops. 
The alluvial bottoms of many of the streams in this and the western 
states, are remarkable for the production of Indian corn. I know 
of large tracts on the Genesee river, the Tonewanda and Buffalo 
creeks, which for Ihirty or forty years have been settled by the 
whites, who have made corn their standing crop, and were the In¬ 
dian cornfields for all past time so far as the Indians themselves 
know. Many of these lands scarce ever overflow, are ploughed 
only to an ordinary depth, yet yield oftentimes eighty bushels to 
the acre with only common culture. I have seen on the Muskin¬ 
gum, the Sciota and Sandusky bottoms in Ohio, fields of more 
than a hundred acres each, which would harvest an average of 
seventy-five bushels to the acre, where corn had been the annual 
crop time out of mind. ' The depth of these soils is prodigious, in 
many instances twenty or thirty feet, apparently of the same 
quality. 
In the fine grazing regions of the south parts of Genesee, Erie, 
Chautauquc, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties, immense tracts 
of the finest pastures exist, where no grass seed has been sown by 
the farmers; white clover and blue or spear grass having come in 
spontaneously on clearing the lands, which remains permanently 
good. It is now not at all diminished, after thirty years’ occu¬ 
pation. While riding through a portion of these counties a few 
years since, where grazing, dairy, and the raising of cattle and 
sheep wes the principal business of the farmers, I remarked upon 
the very rough and uneven appearance of the meadows; having 
never been ploughed, and possessing after many years of cropping, 
all the inequalities of surface which upturned trees and decayed 
trunks, although long since removed, had caused. I inquired why 
these, to appearance, valuable mowing lands, were suffered to re¬ 
main in so rough a state, when two or three ploughings and a cul¬ 
tivated crop or two would make them smooth ? I was answered 
that ploughing would materially injure their productiveness, being 
never so good for grass afterwards ; that immediately after clear¬ 
ing, the land was either harrowed into wheat or oats with grass 
seed, and so had since remained in grass after the first crop was 
harvested ; yielding continually without measure, excellent crops, 
with no deterioration. 
Tn this same region also, oats are raised in great abundance. In 
the south part of Erie, and I doubt noc equally so with the other 
counties named in this grass district, oats in quantity and quality 
exceed any that I ever knew. The soils are sometimes slaty gravel, 
both coarse and fine; gravelly, sandy and vegetable loams, and 
sometimes clay and clayey marl. But the best oat lands are the 
slate and loam soils. In these, oats have been raised in some in¬ 
stances, eighteen or twenty years in succession, and I last sum¬ 
mer saw many large stubble fields on the hills and table lands, 
where the oats had lodged, in consequence of their immense growth, 
which had never been manured, and had yielded frequent and heavy 
crops. Yet these lands were poor for wheat, and but ordinary for 
corn. The farmers who cultivate them, seem fully assured that 
