Practical papers—wheat culture. 
393 
( 
let the stubble stand as perfectly as when the reaper was taken 
from the field; that will keep the snow on the ground and also 
leave the young clover to mulch the land and protect the roots. 
Do not, because you have succeeded in making a good growth 
of young clover, turn stock on and eat it off close to the ground, 
and tramp the ground hard, for in that way you will be fortunate 
if you have it winter. If the above suggestions are pursued, a 
crop of clover may be raised without fail. To utilize the straw^ 
stack in a yard around or near the barn, and each day cut down 
and scatter over the yard a portion for the cattle to pick over and 
lie on. Sheep, with a very little grain, in this way will winter 
well. In this way, too, the straw will be made or placed in a con¬ 
dition to make good manure the fall following. My barn-yard is 
so constructed as to enable me to run my straw from the outside 
into the yard, by stacking the grain at convenient distances for 
doing so. To facilitate the rotting of the straw, I have scraped 
out a basin so as to hold water in such a way, that in the spring 
where the straw is scattered, it will be wet and kept so through the 
summer. 
If too much wet accumulates, draw it off, but be sure it is thor¬ 
oughly wet. In June, I take a team of horses and drive them for 
half a day over this manure pile, poaching up, and repeat it 
once in two weeks through the summer; in that way, it will become 
rotten and easily handled, ready for use on the land. Wheat 
straw, soaked in water simply, is not manure, or at best of poor 
quality. ' A ton of clover hay, or clover straw after the seed has 
been thrashed, is worth three times as much as wheat straw of the 
same weight to make into manure, particularly for wheat manure. 
Land may be rich in vegetable mould and be able to produce a 
a large growth of straw, and still not produce a good kernel of 
wheat; clover manure in any form will supply this deficiency in 
a large degree, and straw manure rotted as above, so as to act 
quickly in the soil, to be easily assimilated, will supply this defect. 
It is important that it should act quickly, to mature the grain in the 
shortest time, and to keep up a vigorous growth from the start to 
maturity. I sow 11-4 bush, seed wheat per acre, with all the light 
wheat blown out. My clover seed, I sow mixed with my seed wheats 
The best seeder is the one that will cover up the seed best, and 
