696 
ask, what is our duty in this case? The answer I 
leave.” 
All matters connected with the cutting of 
wheat are fully discussed in the article Rrap- 
ing and in the other articles there referred to; 
and most other matters connected with the har- 
vesting of wheat are so nearly the same as in 
the case of barley, oats, and rye that they need 
not be again described. Wheat reaped early in 
the morning with a strong dew, should not be 
bound up in sheaves till the dew is entirely 
dried out. When the weather is dry,and the 
crop is free from succulent weeds or from rank 
growing clover, wheat may be carted to the 
rick-yard in a comparatively short time after it 
is cut down; and if, according to the old prac- 
tice, it has been allowed to stand uncut till 
the whole plant has become yellow and exsic- 
cated, it may be stacked almost immediately 
from the reaping. In consequence of its com- 
paratively great length and firmness of straw, 
wheat remains opener in the sheaves, both in 
the shock and in the rick, and therefore dries 
better in both, and may be carried in corre- 
spondingly earlier, than either barley or oats. 
The best criterion to judge of the fitness either 
of wheat or of any of the other culmiferous 
crops for being carried in, is to examine what 
are called the corn-knots or joints of the straw. 
If these are succulent and full of sap, it would 
be dangerous to carry the crop; but when these 
are dried and dead, it may be carried in with great 
safety, even although it may be at the time a 
little wetted by rain. If, however, the crop, or 
any part of it, is meant to be thrashed early, as 
for seed or otherwise, it is necessary to allow it 
to remain in the field till pretty thoroughly 
dried. When the straw happens to be mixed 
with succulent weeds, or with rank growing 
clover and rye-grass, the farmer’s patience must 
be exercised till these are decayed and dried ; 
for if allowed to remain succulent, they would 
be exceedingly apt to heat the whole rick, and 
materially damage the quality of the grain. A 
good practice is to have the shocks thrown down 
a short time before the sheaves are pitched into 
the waggon, in order that their butts may dry 
if damp, and that mice, which may have crept 
into the sheaves, may escape from them. 
The Diseases and Accidents of Wheat.—The in- 
juries to which wheat crops are subject, in the 
various stages of their growth, are numerous, 
great, and complicated. And the chief which 
arise from the weather, are noticed in the arti- 
cles AccipEnts and Buieut; from animals prey- 
ing upon the young crop, in the articles Grus 
and Siue; from fungi in the maturing culms 
and ears, in the articles MinpeEw and Smut; 
from insects in the growing ears or grain, in the 
article Wuuat-Fiy; from animals in the yard 
or barn, in the article Vermin; and from insects 
preying upon the thrashed grain, in the articles 
CALANDRA and Corn-Moru. 
WHEAT. 
The Produce and Composition of Wheat.—The 
produce of wheat grain varies exceedingly ac- 
cording to soil, manure, tillage, culture, rotation, 
variety, season, comparative healthiness, and 
other circumstances. About 35 years ago, when 
British agriculture was in a much less improved 
condition than in the present day, 18 bushels 
per English acre were considered a very poor 
crop, from 24 to 80 bushels were considered a 
fair average on farms of medium good soils under 
good management, 40 bushels were esteemed a 
large produce on good soils in high order, and 
from 38 to 55 bushels were occasionally obtained 
from prime soils under prime management in 
favourable years; and now, when soils have been 
much ameliorated by subsoil draining and other 
arts of georgy,—when manures have received 
the addition of bones, guano, nitrates, and many 
special preparations, and can be discriminat- 
ingly applied in the new lights of agricultural 
chemistry,—when tillage, from the breaking up 
and cleaning of the soil on to the completion of 
after-culture in spring rolling, may be so much 
better effected than before by means of recently 
invented or highly improved implements,—when 
the rotation of crops is so much more clearly un- 
derstood in its principles, and may be so much 
more efficiently carried out by means of recently 
introduced hybrids and varieties of green-fallow 
plants,—when the peculiar capacities of parti- 
cular soils can be brought into play, and the 
fullest energies of all soils called forth, by means 
of the minute adaptations to them which are 
found to exist in the many recently introduced 
varieties of wheat,—and when the diseases and 
accidents which affect wheat crops are so much 
better understood than before, and may, in many 
instances, be so readily prevented or diminished 
by recently discovered or recently invented ap- 
pliances, we might fairly expect that a corre- 
spondingly great increase in wheat produce is 
obtained, if not throughout the whole kingdom, 
at least throughout all its well-improved dis- 
tricts or on all its enlightenedly conducted farms. 
But this we fear is far from being the case. Pro- 
fessor Low, in 1834, held “a fair good crop” to 
be 30 bushels per acre, and estimated the aver- 
age produce of England at not more than 22- 
bushels, and that of Scotland at not more than 
25; and Messrs. Way and Ogston, the Chemists 
of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, 
found the mean produce of more than 40 speci- 
mens, grown in favourable circumstances of soil _ 
and culture in 1846, to be 28 bushels of the 
mean weight of 61 lbs. per bushel. The exten- 
sive abolition of the good old practice of summer 
fallowing has possibly acted as diminishingly 
upon wheat produce as the whole aggregate of 
improvements has acted augmentingly; and 
even these improvements themselves have by no 
means been carried out with the spirit and dis- 
crimination which general onlookers are ready 
to believe. 
