PRACTICAL PAPERS—MIXED HUSBANDRY. 
139 
ently the beneficial effects can readily be traced through a pe¬ 
riod of four or five years, and in making our estimate of the 
value of the corn crop this fact should be taken into consider¬ 
ation. 
Wheat should follow the corn, and the corn should be husked 
and the land cleared as early as possible, so that the ground 
may be plowed in the fall for early spring sowing. Wheat 
cannot be sown too early ; the earliest sowing of this grain 
(and indeed of oats and rye) almost invariably produces the 
best crop, as well as the heaviest and plumpest berry. A late 
sowing of wheat is rarely profitable. Coin is a tropical plant, 
but wheat is not. When the ground is hot, the young wheat 
plant grows up too rapidly and does not stool, as it has not 
time to throw out strong roots. Generally, cereals give a heav¬ 
ier crop as they are longer in growing and maturing. May and 
April have more to do with the filling of wheat heads than 
July and August. 
It is universally admitted that spring grains succeed best on 
land that has been plowed the fall previous. This is undoubt¬ 
edly due, in a measure, to the beneficial action of the frost 
in dividing the lumps; yet, this explanation is not quite sat¬ 
isfactory in every instance, as we have known the winter to 
leave the fall plowed land baked quite hard, so that the drag 
i 
or even the cultivator made but slight impression upon it. 
Such land always requires manuring. The best course to pur¬ 
sue in this case is to spring plow and seed down to grass. By 
fall plowing only can grains be sown early; the cultivation 
and dragging root up many of the weeds before they get much 
start, and the growing grain further keeps them in check. 
Many of our farmers have adopted the practice of planking 
their spring grains. This consists in dragging a heavy plank 
over the land, to finish with. In this way many lumps are 
torn and crushed fine, which would only be pressed in by a roll¬ 
er. This method is undoubtedly preferable, for it performs all 
the good offices expected from a roller in a more efficient way, 
and costs less. 
If we have, made ourselves clearlv understood, it will be 
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