I.  The extent of the wheat region of the United States, and the motives inducing to its development.
       1. The limitation given to it by Mr. Klippart and others examined.
       2. The influence of railroads on wheat production.
       3. The present and future markets for American wheat.
       4. The manufacturing, commercial, and carrying business dependent on the wheat crop.

II. The best modes of growing and harvesting wheat.
       1. The nature of the wheat plant.
            a. Whether created as it now is.
            b. Organic, inorganic, and proximate analysis of the grain.
            c. Germination of the seed and growth of the plant.
            d. Diseases, enemies, and casualties, and their remedies.
       2. The best soils for wheat production.
            a. Natural soils.
            b. Artificial soils, by deep ploughing, drainage, and use of barnyard, green, and mineral manures.
       3. Cultivation.
            a. Implements—the plough, the harrow, and the drill.
            b. The times and modes of using these, and, herein, of the uses and kinds of the fallow, harrowing, and rolling.
            c. Selecting seed wheat.
            d. Time and manner of sowing it; the use of the drill.
            e. Spring harrowing.
       4. Harvesting.
            a. The proper time for cutting.
            b. The best mode of cutting.
            c. Binding, shocking, and stacking.
            d. Threshing and cleaning.
            e. The proper place to stack the straw, and how it should be disposed of.  Analysis of the grain and straw.

There is no history which takes us beyond the cultivation of the wheat plant. Some believe it was created as it now is, and was from the beginning the every-day food of man in the form of bread, from the curse-pronounced against Adam, “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” In his lamentation for Tyrus, the prophet Ezekiel says: “Judah and the land of Israel they were thy merchants; they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith.”  From this we see how ancient were the production and commerce in wheat, and the history of all nations shows it fo have been the chief product from which bread was made. It has, consequently, assumed an importance above any other cereal.

When America was discovered it was not found on this continent. It was, however, soon brought here, and a slave of Cortez finding a few grains in some rice, sent from Spain, carefully preserved and planted them, and from these, it is believed, the wheats of Mexico and the Northern Pacific have been derived. It was introduced into the Elizabeth islands of Massachusetts in 1602, and in 1611 into Virginia. In 1718 it was brought into the valley of the Mississippi, and im 1746 flour was first shipped from the Wabash river to New Orleans. This was the commencement of a trade that has become a part of the history of the west, and rendered the free navigation of the Mississippi so essential to its prosperity that no political changes or necessities will ever be permitted to close or obstruct it.

Although the wheat crop of the United States is much less in number of bushels than the corn crop—the one being, according to the census report of 1860, 170,176,027 bushels, and the other 827,694,528 bushels—yet the market value of it is not much less than that of corn. In the commercial world it is the great ruling product, regulating, as Mr. Webster said, the exchanges of Europe and America.

A crop of such magnitude should receive greater consideration than has yet been given to it in the agricultural reports of the general government, I will endeavor to discharge this duty by considering it under two general divisions: 1. The extent of the capabilities of the United States in the production of wheat.
2. Its proper cultivation.

What is the extent of the wheat region of the United States, is a question that has been considered and differently answered. Politicians who know nothing of agriculture have often asserted that the United States can feed the whole world—an assertion too absurd to be further noticed. But, on the other hand, the wheat region has been narrowed to limits entirely too contracted.

   “The natural and permanent wheat region,” says Mr. Klippart in his essay on the growth, &c., of the wheat plant, “lies between latitude 33° and 43° north. This wheat region embraces Ohio, the south parts of Michigan and New York, the whole of Pennsylvania, Maryland. Virginia, and Delaware, and in these States we find where is raised, or has been, the greatest wheat production. Ohio stands at the head of all the wheat-growing States in the aggregate of her production. Her crop in 1850 was twenty-eight millions of bushels, being nearly sixteen and a half bushels to each inhabitant.
   “Thus the reports of the geological survey of Ohio, show the soil to be clayey, clayey loam, and clayey subsoil, and it produces 16½ bushels to each inhabitant, while Indiana, with a richer soil, produces only 8½ bushels, and Illinois, with a still richer soil, produces only 7½ bushels to each inhabitant. Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, as well as New York were formerly great wheat-producing sections. But many parts of New York that formerly produced twenty-five bushels to the acre, do not now average over five bushels, and many parts of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware, that formerly produced abundantly, will not now pay the cost of cultivation. Exhaustion is written all over them in language too plain to be misunderstood.”

This opinion, if correct, in the course of that rapidly increasing home demand, arising from the progress of manufactures, and from that unfortunate exhaustion which Mr. Klippart justly condemns, (for it pervades too many portions of the new States as well as of the old,) would soon limit the capability of the United States to the supply of its own wants. But he is mistaken in information of the general character of the soils of Indiana and Illinois, and of the adaptability of the richer portions to wheat production. The alluvial lands of the Wabash, White, and White Water rivers, in Indiana, and of many of their tributaries, are so very rich as to give rise to the idea abroad that the entire soil of this State is of a deep, black, loamy, sandy, and carbonaceous nature, rendering it too light for profitable wheat cultivation. This is an error. Between these alluvial districts the land generally is a rolling limestone soil, heavy and tenacious enough to prevent the roots of the wheat from being laid bare by freezing or drought. This is especially true of the south half of the State, and the adaptability of the rich soils of the north half may be seen from the following counties and their wheat product in 1858.

Several of these counties are new, and our counties generally are small.  The entire crop of Indiana in that year was 16,090,007 bushels. But the census report of 1860 most completely disproves the assumption that the wheat region of the United States is limited by the boundaries Mr. Klippart would affix to it.  It shows that the very soil which scientific men have condemned as unsuitable for wheat production, if not the best, is, at least, as well adapted to it as the heavier clay soils. This is seen in the following returns of the census of that year:

Here we see that Illinois, with such a large portion of light carbonaceous soil, produced nearly ten millions of bushels of wheat more than Ohio, and increased its wheat product in these ten years 157 per centum, whilst Ohio has scarcely made any increase at all. Indiana, with an area of over six thousand square miles less than Ohio, raised more wheat, and increased its product in the last decade 145 per centum. Some writers also limit the wheat region to ten degrees of latitude. The census returns do not less pointedly refute this theoretical view. I need refer but to two States to show this.

These are the extreme States of the Mississippi valley, but are too new to exhibit their true value as wheat-producing States. On the Pacific coast we have California and Oregon, whose wheats are unsurpassed in excellence, and on the Atlantic the old State of Maryland, with “many parts” exhausted, having added 50 per centum to its wheat product between 1850 and 1860.  Take out from the vast region lying between these five States the desert portion of the Rocky Mountains, and we have before us the wheat region of the United States.

It may not be without utility to inquire into the causes of the error into which Mr. Klippart and others had fallen. These are two: first, overlooking the adaptability of spring wheat to these lighter soils; and second, being misled by the small wheat product of the northwestern States, as exhibited in the census return of 1850.

It is true that winter wheat in portions of Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa is an uncertain crop. It needs a heavy soil that cannot be crumbled into dust by severe freezing and then blown from the roots of the wheat plant by the strong winds of the prairies when the snow is light. But spring wheat in these portions gives a remunerating crop, and hence the great progress made by these States in their wheat product.

The low wheat production of the northwestern States, Ohio excepted, prior to 1850, is attributable entirely to their want of market facilities. A residence of thirty-three years in Indiana has familiarized me with the agricultural condition of the west. Prior to 1850 our wheat market of the county of my residence was at Louisville, accessible only during the Indian summer weather of the fall. With his wagon and team the farmer carried his surplus wheat crop, at one load, ninety miles, at a season when the waters of the Ohio river were too low to permit shipments, and when the yellow fever at New Orleans had stopped all commerce at that city. The markets were without the least animation, and the usual Louisville prices were from 40 to 50 cents a bushel. If our farmers returned home with as much sugar and coffee as would supply the economical wants of their families, they accomplished all that they expected by their surplus crops of wheat. Of what avail would a larger crop have been? They therefore directed their attention to the raising of com, feeding it to hogs and cattle, which carried themselves to market, even when corn production was ruinous to their soils.

From what I have just stated it will be seen that a wheat region without transportation facilities is unavailable. It is necessary, then, to examine what these are to show the capability of the wheat region of the United States; its extent only has as yet been shown.

Up to 1850 no one dreamed of the network of railroads which has since been spread over the northwestern States. A single road connecting the eastern states with St. Louis was all that the most sanguine hoped to see; but events in England made railroad iron there cheap and in great abundance, and with its characteristic energy the west was not slow to avail itself of the inducements proffered.

We are told at first the earth was without form and void, and that darkness dwelt on the face of the deep until there was light, and the waters separated from the land, when the earth was clothed in green, and every tree yielded its fruit. Our railroads were almost as miraculous in their influence over all the region of the northwest: the wilderness became a fruitful field, and untravelled wastes bloomed and budded as a garden. They opened the interior of its states to commercial connexion with-all sections of the country at all times of the year. There was breathed into the farmer a new spirit, and he became another being. The contrast between his present and former condition is seen in every page of the census report of 1860. So vitally is it connected with the production of the northwest for the present and the future, more especially with the wheat, crop, that a table of these roads becomes an essential part of an essay on wheat.

In this vast increase of railroads during the last decade we see the cause of that corresponding increase of the wheat crop of the northwest. With the progress of railroads in Missouri we see the wheat crop increasing also, and the available wheat region of the United States is bounded only by the limits of railroad enterprise. The projected railroad to the Pacific will be a spinal column to all that unsettled region stretching out, on either hand, a wide country of prosperity and beauty.

But a third thing is essential to the development of the resources of a wheat region—a demand for its product. I proceed, then, to examine what that demand is and will be, as far as the American farmer is interested, and in so doing inquire, first, what the home market is and will be; second, what the foreign market is and will probably be for the future.

1. The present and future home market—Although the increase of wheat has been seventy per centum during the last decennial year, yet at no previous period have prices been so satisfactory to the producer. Fluctuations there have been, as there always will be, in all markets for all productions; but the average price in this period exceeds the average price of any other like period.  The cause of this is to be found in a better home and foreign demand. Had the home demand but increased only with the increase of population, the average price would have been much less; but it has much exceeded this, and the cause for it is explained, by the census report of 1860, in the great increase of manufacturing labor.

The value of our manufactures in 1850 was $1,019,106,616, and in 1860 about $1,900,000,000—an increase of eighty-six per centum, whilst the increase of population in the same period was thirty-five per centum. But this amount, great as it is, does not include mechanical productions below the annual value of five hundred dollars, which are not taken in the census, nor of the mechanical pursuits not classed in manufactures. The Superintendent of the Census, Mr. Kennedy, says:  "It is safe to assume that one third of the whole population is supported, directly and indirectly, by manufacturing industry.”

These results, so highly encouraging to the wheat producer, are not found in the eastern and middle States only, but in the west, too—thus bringing the consumer closer to the producer, as the latter advances further west. The statistics of Ohio show an increase in its agricultural productions, and in its mining, manufacturing, and mechanical industry, and its commerce and navigation, as follows:
   Corn crop, 18 per centum; wheat, (about,) 20 per centum; horses, 63 per centum; cattle, 40 per centum; hogs, 15 per centum; mining, 300 per centum; manufactures and mechanic industry, 90 per centum; tonnage, 260 per centum.

These statistics exhibit the general tendency of the older agricultural States to increase those pursuits which create consumers of agricultural products, whilst those regarded as manufacturing have made a rapid progress in all branches of manufactures and mechanical employments. Thus these pursuits aid and sustain each other, and call into existence another class of laborers profitable to both—those engaged in the commerce, navigation, and transportation which the interchange of their commodities create. The wheat product may be taken as an illustration of these influences of manufacturing industry. It amounted, as already stated, to more than one hundred and seventy millions of bushels in 1860. The value of flour and meal manufactured was $223,144,369, nearly all of which was consumed in the home market; the export being but $16,360,582.

The industrial products of the farmer and manufacturer will continue to find a remunerative market in their mutual consumption, until the desolation of wars, by diverting their industry to unprofitable labor, will paralyze the prosperity of all.

2. The present and future foreign market—No part of my subject has occasioned me as much difficulty as this. We have no statistical bureau in our general government to collect the recent and reliable statistics of Europe, nor do the governments of that country collect statistics of their productions as the United States does in its census. In the article on wheat-growing in Prussia, published by Mr. Judd, our minister at Berlin, but evidently prepared by an intelligent Prussian, this remark is made: “Official statistical reports of the whole quantity of wheat produced annually in Prussia do not exist at all, because all experiments to fix the quantity have remained without result.” If this is so in the small, enlightened, and highly agricultural kingdom of Prussia, how uncertain must be the estimate of Russian grain production, so large in territory, and with a population o heterogeneous in races, language, customs, and laws and how unreliable must be the accounts of German grain production, with its numerous principalities! Still, we have a good deal of statistical information of grain production and consumption, sufficiently accurate, for my present purpose, to present a general estimate of the demand on our country for its wheat from the deficits of European nations.

France may be regarded as capable of supplying only its own consumption of breadstuffs. In 1850 and in 1851 it exported, the first of these years, about fourteen millions of dollars’ worth, and the second about sixteen millions, whilst in 1856 and 1857 its imports were, in both years, 49,677,535 bushels of grain.

The annual production of wheat is placed at about 191,000,000 of bushels, leaving but eleven millions of bushels for seed.

Prussia, eminent for its agriculture, furnished to England, as is seen, in 1839, nearly double the amount of any other nation; yet of itself it possesses no ability beyond the supply of its own wants. In the article of Mr. Judd referred to, the annual wheat product of Prussia is stated to be 20,000,000 bushels, and the consumption per head 105 pounds.  These, I presume, are Prussian bushels and pounds; if so, this amount is equal to about 35,333,000 American bushels of production, and two and a quarter bushels of consumption for each person. The population of Prussia is, in round numbers, seventeen millions— making its consumption 38,250,000 bushels, being more than its production, Whatever supplies are received by England and other nations from Prussia must be the production of Russia and Poland. The article of Mr. Judd states that Prussia imported from these countries, in 1858, 2,169,000 bushels, and in 1859, 1,280,000.

The wheat product of Austria is stated to be 94,824,681 bushels, with a population of nearly 40,000,000. If its consumption is no more to each inhabitant than in Prussia—two and a quarter bushels—the entire consumption would be 90,000,000 of bushels, leaving but 4,824,081 bushels for seed. So far, then, as it affords supplies to Great Britain, these must be drawn from Russia and Poland. Germany and Italy may be regarded as occupying a similar position to Prussia and Austria—unable, from their own wheat product, to export to other nations. And here I may remark, that nearly all these countries consume potatoes in large quantities, so that, from the uncertainty of this product, unusual demands at home will often arise for wheat, thus rendering a dependence upon them by Great Britain too uncertain to be relied upon.  Besides this, the wants of these nations are constantly increasing beyond their agricultural supplies.  We have seen how rapidly the manufacturing, mining, and transportation interests are increasing in our own country beyond the per .centum increase of agricultural industry. A like change marks the progress of nearly every European nation, each one striving to establish its independence in manufactured articles. Hence their ability, either of themselves or through Russia, to supply England is growing weaker, as is seen in the largely-increased exports of the breadstuffs of the United States to Great Britain.  In 1850 our exports of wheat and its products were $8,074,438, but they regularly increased to 1860, when they were $20,004,951. At some periods in this decade they were much higher from unusual causes, as in 1854, on account of the Russian war, when they reached $40,616,956; in 1857, from short crops, when our exports were $48,687,169, and in 1861, from the same cause, when they reached $63,389,181.

Russia, alone, produces an amount of breadstuffs far exceeding its own wants. Its Poland possessions are the best wheat regions in Europe, and the extent of production is limited only by unskilful husbandry and the want of railways.

Russia is wanting in sea-coast; and, although its rivers are connected by canals, yet the heavy transportation of wheat and flour, as we have seen in our western States, demand such near markets as a net-work of railroads only can give. Still Russia can export grain largely, as is seen when the general short crop in Europe in 1847, from the general rot of the potato, created an extraordinary demand on its capabilities. In that year it exported of wheat and its equivalent of flour 70,502,572 bushels. But its distance from the markets of Great Britain and France, and the want of a large commercial intercourse with these nations, will limit its exports of grain to Austria, Prussia, and Germany, whilst the United States will supply France and Great Britain. To do this under the constantly increasing home demand will insure favorable markets generally to the wheat producer of the United States, and, at times, demand every surplus bushel at the highest prices. He has, therefore, everything essential to success—a, vast wheat region, the best means of transportation, and a great and increasing home and foreign market.

The manufacturing, commercial, and carrying business dependent on the wheat crop—Having considered the first general division of my subject, I wish, before passing to the second, to glance at the home interests dependent on the wheat crop.

I have already stated the value of the flour and meal manufactured in the United States to be $223,144,369, being an increase of $87,246,563 upon that of 1850. The meal is not separated from the flour, but it constitutes but a small portion of this large sum. This manufacture is, therefore, about an eighth part of the entire manufactures of our country. The value-of agricultural implements is $17,802,510, one-third of which may be credited to wheat production. Ploughs, drills, and reapers make up the chief part of this amount, and these are indispensable to it. Wagons are constantly used in stacking the sheaves and hauling the grain to market, whilst drays and other vehicles are necessary in the transit of wheat to the mills and of the flour returned from them. The barrels and bags used are items of no small importance, and the building of the mills and the construction of their machinery give employment to the carpenter and millwright.

A product so universally and so largely consumed as flour, creates a commercial interest that cannot now be traced out, for the space it would require cannot be given. From the mill it passes through the hands of the wholesale dealer, the exporter, the retailer; is taken on every railroad, on every steamboat and ship, as the distribution carries it from the granaries of the west to the consumers in the east and south, and in foreign countries, until the household bakes it into bread; and the city bakers again send it into every district of our country as crackers and biscuit; and all the labor bestowed on it is constantly adding to its value; and the farmer (that it first benefits) asks in return the various manufactures wrought by the skill of the laborer at the looms.

I have mentioned the great influence exercised over the wheat production of west by the railways passing through it. It followed that this increased production gave large employment, in return, to these and other roads. The freights of wheat and flour make a leading item of railroad, steamboat, canal, and ship transportation, calling into active employment the builders of ships, and cars, and locomotives, and increasing largely the number of persons necessary to the working of them. All this varied labor is for the good of all, for it sustains the existence of all unattended with any incidental evil. The sweat of the brow, decreed as a punishment to our first parents, has been sanctified to us in these diversified pursuits which the necessity of bread has created.  Strike out of existence the wheat product of our country, and when and how could the vast void be filled?  And in view of the magnitude of its importance a food essential to all at all times, to the poor and the rich, in health or in sickness, to each one, no matter what occupation or condition of life, how God-like in its simplicity and necessity is the prayer taught us by our Saviour, “Give us this dary our daily bread.”

The best modes of growing wheat.—The second general division of this essay relates to the proper cultivation of the wheat plant, and under it I will consider, first, the nature of the plant; second, the soil best adapted to it; third, its cultivation; fourth, harvesting it.

The nature of the wheat plant.—Whether the wheat plant has always been as we now find it, or had its origin in an inferior plant, is a question not well settled. A French gardener, M. Fabre, sowed the seeds of a coarse grass, named by botanists ægilops, in the fall of 1839, which ripened in July following. Its seeds he sowed in the fall of 1840, and continued sowing the seeds every year until in 1845, when the plants then raised were regarded by all examined them as genuine wheat plants. Its changes from the coarse were gradual, at first producing few seeds, but which increased in number its resemblance to a wheat plant became stronger. This experiment would indicate that the wheat plant is the result of cultivation.  [The author neglects the likely fact that some inadvertant selection was almost certainly also happening. -ASC]

On the other hand, its deterioration, when uncultivated, should be rapid until it resumed the characteristics of a coarse grass. This does not seem to be the case, for the wheat plant was found growing wild in California and Oregon, over a large extent of territory, and under circumstances that precluded the supposition that it had been cultivated by the Indians. Here it exhibited itself as a genuine and thrifty wheat plant. Whether this is the result of a climate and soil highly favorable to it, or because it was created at first a wheat plant, can be determined only by further experiments. Until these are made, the presumption must be that our cereals, like our grasses, first grew with all those distinctive differences they now present.

The numerous varieties of the wheat plant undoubtedly had a common origin, for it is much modified by soil, climate, and cultivation. In color there are the white, yellow, and red varieties; but in the United States commerce recognizes but two—the red and white. They also differ in some having smooth heads, while others are bearded; and some being sown in the fall are called winter wheats, while others are sown in the spring, and known as spring wheats. But all these differences may be changed, the one to the other, by soil, climate, and time of sowing. Winter tropical wheats cannot endure the cold of the temperate regions, but may be acclimated to them. The influence of climate alone is seen in the marked differences between wheats raised in the belt of the trade-winds, such as the Chilian, Australian, and Californian, and those of rainy regions, as of the United States. Rains seem to thicken and darken the skin or bran. Hence the fine wheats of our climate cannot be successfully grown in a different climate, but will deteriorate to the general standard of excellence of the country to which they have been taken; so, also, in early or late maturity. An early wheat in the hot climate of America will lengthen its season in such a moist and cool climate as that of England.  Hence our constant failures to improve our varieties of wheat by importing seed from other countries. After being acclimated they present no important differences from our own. The same has been the experience of English farmers when importing the fine varieties grown in Australia. The only successful course to improvement lies in the production of new home varieties by hybridization. The varieties of maize can be easily produced from this aptitude to mix. So strong is this, that to be kept pure, different kinds should not be planted in adjoining fields. But wheats do not so easily hybridize. It is said that they may be sown alongside of each other, and will not mix, because of the strong tendency of the pistil of one plant to reject the pollen of another, preferring that of its own plant, seemingly insensible to the fructifying power of a different variety when its own pollen is also received. I doubt, however, the correctness of this statement to this extent; but that the intermixture is much less easily effected than with maize is doubtless true. That wheats rapidly run out is certain; the common complaints fully show this; but this is from unsuitable soil and cultivation. The most flinty grains will become soft and chaffy when grown in a soil too poor to produce good wheat. If such product is sown, the deterioration is so rapid that the crop becomes unremunerative, and the farmer seeks new kinds. From this we learn the lesson that our seed wheats should be grown in a well-manured and well-cultivated soil, rather than rely on new varieties. Such course will enable us to avoid small and badly matured grains which so rapidly deteriorate a crop, as will be shown when speaking of the germination of the seed.

The nature of a plant, as to its elements, can be known from analysis only.  As these elements are derived from the soil, modified into different forms and prospects by the peculiar vital forces of each plant, the analysis of the plant and the soil become of the highest utility to the farmer, for they teach him what soils are naturally adapted, or must be made so artificially, for the production of certain plants.

There are three analyses of every plant; first, the ash analysis, being that part of it which remains after burning. This shows the mineral element of the plant; it is usually known as the inorganic analysis; second, the organic analysis, or the atmospheric, being those elements of the plant which it derives directly or indirectly from the atmosphere; third, as these atmospheric elements are compound bodies, they may, by analysis, be reduced to their elements. and such analysis is called proximate.

These analyses show the reason why wheat flour has been through all ages, and so universally, used for making bread. It contains a large proportion of gluten, which gives it tenacity when made into dough, and by which it is made light with yeast. Maize has but 3.68 of gluten, and hence it cannot be made light as wheat dough. Hard, flinty wheat contains about 2.50 more of gluten than soft wheats; hence their higher commercial value. But gluten is of the highest value as food, because it forms muscle or flesh, whilst oils, sugar, gum, and starch form fat, and sustain the animal heat of the body, through the breathing of the lungs. Not unaptly, therefore, is wheat bread called the staff of life, for it imparts strength to the muscles.

Germination of the seed and growth of the plant—The nature of the wheat plant may be seen also in the germination of its seed and in the growth of the plant. Both present many interesting as well as important practical matters to the agriculturist. The grain is composed of the husk or bran, enclosing starch and the germ of the future plant. The starch is provided for the growth of the germ until by its roots,and leaves it can support itself from the soil and the atmosphere. Three things are essential to awaken the dormant life of the germ into active existence—air, heat, and moisture. When the grain is deposited in the soil it absorbs the moisture and heat of the soil; it swells, absorbs oxygen from the air, and soon the germ pushes through the covering of bran, and puts forth its tap root, which descends deeper than the others into the soil, and its stem, which shoots above it. In so doing it lives and grows from the starch of the grain. But this starch cannot be dissolved but by the moisture drawn into the grain, and it is only through the moisture that the food of the plant is taken into the roots; for the germ has its roots. This starch was formed from the sugar of the plant on which the grain grew, and as sugar is soluble in water, the first thing that nature does is to reconvert the starch into sugar. Immediately around the germ, (through the agency of the heat, moisture, and oxygen of the air,) is formed a substance to which chemists have given the name of diastase.  It changes the starch into sugar; but how it does it, or how itself is formed, yet remains hidden in the invisible operations of nature. We have in the familiar operations of malting barley an illustration of the action of diastase. After the barley is soaked in water and put in heaps it heats very rapidly and begins to sprout. It is then dried, and has a very sweet taste, for the diastase has converted a large portion of the starch into sugar. The same work of diastase is seen by those who use barley, wheat, or rye as a substitute for coffee. These are soaked until they sprout, and are then dried and parched.  When thus malted they are found to be very sweet, because the starch has been changed to sugar. But if the wheat is put into the soil so deeply that no air ean get to it, then this diastase cannot be formed, and the starch is not changed to sugar. The germ has nothing to subsist upon, and does not grow.  Or if an insufficient amount of air reaches it, it will sprout, but the growth of the germ will be spindling and weak, for but a small portion of the starch is changed to sugar. If the seed is sown in a tenacious clay soil, and is followed by a heavy compacting rain, the same result will follow, for the clay is pressed so closely around the seed that either no air or an insufficient portion only reaches the grain. If the grain becomes moist under such conditions, it speedily rots. In September, 1861, I ploughed in a small portion of wheat in a cornfield, but was driven out of the field early in the morning by a heavy, beating rain, and the rows thus ploughed in never showed the tenth part of the seed I sowed on them. Two years ago I lost my entire potato crop from the heaviest rain I have ever seen flooding the ground, on the day after the potatoes were planted, compacting it harder than before it was broken up, which was rendered more impervious to the air by a sharp drought. The destruction of seed from these causes is much more frequent than is supposed, and hence a common expression of the farmer:  "Well, I put the seed there, but I do not know what has become of it.”

Moisture is as essential as air. It not unfrequently happens that after wheat is sown, and has imbibed moisture enough from the soil to enable it to begin to sprout, that the dry weather of our Indian summer sets in and dries the top soil so much that the grains near the surface are completely dried. Its growth must cease until rain falls, but in the mean time the sugar formed from the starch attracts the red ant, which eats out the germ and the sugar in the grain, leaving the unchanged starch. But I will recur to these things when speaking of the drill.

The growth of the plant is not less instructive. It forms three kinds of roots: first, the primary, or tap root; second, the secondary, or side roots; and third, the surface roots. The tap root is that first formed by the germ of the seed.  Its principal purpose in the wheat plant, as in trees, seems to be to fix the plant firmly in the soil, and to sustain it until the side roots are thrown out. Its utility in the first growth of the plant is great, as is seer in the sorghum; for the plant.is dependent on it until the side or secondary roots are formed. As the seed of the sorghum is small, it has but little starch to sustain it until the side roots are thrown out; hence its slow, weak growth at this period. This is very much the case with the wheat plant. On this account $he soil around the tap root should be of excellent quality, and reduced to the finest state of pulverization.

The secondary roots, in which I include the spring roots of the tillers, are thrown out each side of the tap root where it comes out from the seed. These are the chief roots of the plant upon which its growth depends, and they divide, and subdivide, and multiply, until they form that network of roots seen in a vigorous wheat plant. Upon these roots the tilling of the wheat plant relies, and hence, according to their vigor, do we find the multiplied stems by the tillering process. The surface roots are not important unless the seed has en deposited too deeply, when a bulb is formed on the stem at the surface of the ground, from which these roots proceed. Many farmers believe that it is unimportant as to the depth of the sowing, supposing that the principal roots of the plant are formed at the surface of the ground; but this is an error, as I will more fully show when noticing the proper mode of sowing the seed.

Diseases, enemies, and casualties—There is none of our cereals so liable to injuries from diseases, enemies, and casualties, as the wheat plant. It has the "gauntlet” to run from the time the seed is sown until the sheaves are in the stack. No matter how promising the crop may be at any stage of its growth, the farmer considers everything as doubtful until it is cut. The causes creating this uncertainty merit a thorough investigation to determine how far they are a part of the nature of the plant, or to what extent they may be avoided by a more careful cultivation. I will consider the most destructive of these diseases.  The rust, or mildew, and the smut, are the most fatal to the wheat crop of the United States.

1. The Mildew, or the Rust, and its remedies.—The oldest of our histories, the Bible, frequently alludes to it as common among the Jews, and represented it as one of: the punishments inflicted on that disobedient, people. They were warned that disobedience would be followed with blasting and with mildew; and when thus punished, the prophet Haggai says:  I smote you with blasting, and with mildew, and with hail, in all the labors of your hands; yet ye turned not to me, saith the Lord.” The Hebrew name for the rust, yarcoon, meaning a yellow color caused by moisture, is indicative of the cause and appearance of the disease then as we find them now. The Grecian and Roman writers have transmitted to us like names and causes. The Greeks called it erusitee, and the Romans rubigo. Ovid, describing the rubigalia, a religious festival established by one of the earliest rulers of Rome, makes the priest say, "If the sun fervently heats the moist stalks, then, O dread goddess, is the opportunity for thy dread wrath. Be merciful, I pray, and withhold thy rusting hands from the crops.” In all times, and among every civilized people, this disease existed, and a moist stalk heated by a hot sun is the cause of it; hence heavy dews, precipitated by clear, cool nights, succeeded by a hot sun during the day, soon develop the disease now as it did in the most ancient periods. It was not until the microscope was invented that the true nature of the disease was known. There is a species of plant which lives on the sap of other plants, called parasite. The rust and smut are plants of this character. The microscope shows the fact that rust is a perfectly-formed plant, having roots, stems, and branches, and producing seed too small for the unaided eye to discover.  These exist in innumerable quantities in the atmosphere, awaiting the condition essential to their germination and development.” What these are we have already seen. In the language of Ovid, they arc the sun fervently beating on the moistened stalks. When this moisture proceeds from showery weather, no danger need be apprehended; but when from dews precipitated by cool nights, then the rust rapidly develops itself. Whether the moisture in drying so rapidly causes a contraction of the outer portion of the stem so as to induce splitting, or whether the coolness of the night causes it, is not certainly ascertained. Be this as it may, the result is the same—an imperceptible splitting of the straw through which the sap oozes out. The invisible and multitudinous seeds of the rust attach themselves to this sap, and, burying themselves in it, rapidly vegetate, striking their roots in the openings of the straw, thus diverting to themselves the sap of the plant, which should go to the filling out and ripening of the grain. Hence it so rapidly shrivels, and often becomes worthless.

What is the remedy against this evil? The Romans sacrificed a red bitch on the altar of the Goddess Rubigo, the priest entreating her to withhold her rusting hands. If the farmers could be persuaded to sacrifice all bitches to the goddess, then an altar ought to he erected to her on every farm, for the indirect benefit to the wheat crop by increased sheep husbandry would more than compensate all losses from the rust.

The Jewish prophets regarded the blasting and mildew as a punishment for the sins of the people. When a people by rebellion, under such high condition of prosperity as exhibited by the census of 1860, seeks its own and the destruction of others, and the overthrow of the best government the world has seen, blasting and mildew of the wheat crop will not stay their impious hands.  But, regarding the remedy for rust, through the microscope we find that it is not in all stages of the growth of the plant that the straw is liable to split under heavy dews and a hot sun. It is not in its growing state, but in its ripening stage only, that this result is produced. Hence, whatever rapidly shortens the ripening stage lessens the danger. For this purpose there is nothing equal to stable manure, the precise effects of which on the soil and on the wheat crop will be stated under the head of manures. Another remedy is in immediate harvesting when the crop is affected by the rust. The following instructive experiments on this point I find in Mr. Klippart’s essay on wheat. Mr. George D. Hendricks, of Preble county, Ohio, writes Mr. Klippart as follows:  "In 1842 I had a large field seriously affected by rust, an , having read in the Genesee Farmer the necessity of early cutting, I put a hand cradle to work and left; was absent a few days, and, on my return, found my hand had only cut a few dozen of sheaves, avowing that it was so green he knew it would be worthless. I then procured hands, and had the field cut, but too late for more than half a crop, whilst the portion cut at first was plump, and had well-filed grains.”

“In 1840 I had three fields of wheat of equal size; about the 20th to the 25th of June the rust made its appearance in its worst form. The cholera being in the country, hands were hard to procure. I however procured two cradles, and set them to work in field No. 1; soon left for the day, and, on my return home, was vexed to find my foreman had abandoned the field, with the declaration that if I was fool enough to cut wheat so green, he was not! I explained, entreated, and finally got the field cut on Monday and Tuesday of the week, leaving the wheat in the swath, unbound, until it partly cured in the sun before binding. Field No. 2 was left, partly to meet the views of my hands, and partly to mark the difference, as an experiment, until Thursday and Friday, when it was cut and shocked. Field No. 3 having been put in by a tenant, and under his control, was left until the Monday following, though I urged him to have it harvested sooner.  On Monday all hands were ready for the work, but on close inspection there was notling but straw to cut, and hence the field was left unharvested.”

"The result.—Yield No. 1, although it was the poorest set or stand by at east one-fourth, produced twelve measured bushels of wheat to the acre, weighing fifty-six pounds to the bushel. No. 2 yielded eight bushels to the acre, weighing only forty-six or forty-eight pounds to the bushel, while the third field, fully equal to the second field in every respect, and the same kind of wheat (white chaff beardy) produced nothing. Again, in 1857, (last year,) the rust made its appearance, but not so fatal in its consequences, but enough to do great damage. So soon as discovered I 'pitched into’ field No. 1, cutting and shocking the same day. The crop was so green I had to reopen the shocks and many of the sheaves to cure them, to keep from moulding, as I also did in field No. 1, in 1849. Field No. 2 was left a week, being a late sown field; and again had a field No. 3 in charge of a tenant, who obstinately, refused to cut it until ripe.

“Result.—No. 1 produced twenty-five bushels to the acre; weight, sixty- four pounds to the bushel, and as full, flinty wheat as I ever saw. No. 2, being only half set, injured by the fly and freezing out, produced ten bushels to the acre, weighing fifty-six pounds; but in this field, and in the poorest point in it, (clay land,) I had manured one acre in the centre of the field, and on which was, at least, thirty bushels of No. 1 wheat. Neither the rust nor fly had affected it. No. 3 yielded (though a good set) some eight bushels to the acre, and the wheat so poor it could not be sold, and I am using it for feed.”

The results of these experiments are like others that have been made. But we see from them how very reluctant farmers are to cut wheat until it is fully ripe; and hence the heavy losses sustained from the rust. The reason of the above results is found in the nature of the ripening process of the wheat plant.  From ten days to two weeks in the United States before it is fully ripe the stem of the wheat plant will be found turning yellow immediately at the ground, indicating that the roots have ceased to supply further the plant with sap. Hence whatever sap and nutritious elements are yet necessary to fill out the grain must be in the stem and leaves. These the rust plants appropriate themselves whilst the wheat remains uncut.  But it is evident from the foregoing and similar experiments that the cutting destroys the life of the rust plants, leaving to the grain the sap and nutritious elements still in the stem.  Every farmer has observed that when maize is cut up green, in a few days the grain will be shriveled and loose on the cob; but in two or three weeks, when the stalk is pretty well dried, the grain is full and tight on the cob. This arises from the continued course of sap to the cob, and from it to the grain.  If this is the case with the maize, where the action of the root continues until the is thoroughly ripened, how much more likely is it to be the case with the wheat plant, whose roots cease their action before the maturity of the grain?  How or in what way harvesting the crop destroys the vital action of the rust plant I have no means of determining; but it is worthy the most careful microscopic observation.

The Smut and its remedy.—The disease of the wheat crop destroying the grains of the wheat by enclosing in the husk a fetid black powder is known as the smut. It is the most singular of all parasites. This powder, when viewed through the microscope, is seen to be a collection of small seeds, which adhere the wheat when all are thrashed together. Whilst growing, the wheat plant absorbs these seeds with the sap which enters the roots, and when thus introduced into the interior of the plant, they germinate and use the sap of the plant and its entire organization, even to the husks of the grain, to the production of its own seeds. The plant thus affected by smut does not grow as large as a healthful one, and exhibits a very dark green appearance fror the blackened sap within. It is said that heads have been found containing some good grains and some smutted ones, but I have never seen any such, and doubt whether it is possible for such a mixed growth to be.

How long the seeds of smut can retain their vitality when lying on the soil, or what are the conditions extending or limiting their vitality, I have no means of ascertaining. A neighbor, very particular to eradicate every head of smut from his fields by sowing no seed at all mixed with it, or allowing a smutted stalk to mature, stated to me last season, with all his care, he found a good many heads of smut in his wheat. Upon inquiry, I found that they were in the vicinity of an old decayed straw pile which he had scattered, and which had some smut in it when threshed. From this it would seem that the seeds are capable of retaining their vitality for several years when mixed with straw. I am making an experiment to test their vitality on the ground, having hogged down a field of wheat with much smut in it, arising from the use of bluestone in insufficient quantity to destroy the smut. The remedy against smut is by soaking the seed wheat in washes of different kinds, among which is that of dissolved bluestone, having considerable strength, during one night, and then mixing quicklime with the still wetted wheat. Another is to use salt instead of bluestone, soaking the same time and followed by the same application of quicklime. These destroy the vitality of the smut seeds. Should these seeds lose their vitality when exposed on the soil, or by an intervening fallow crop, the careful farmer, by these steps, can easily protect himself against this parasitic plant.

3. Does wheat turn to Cheat?—I may here dwell for a moment on that vexed question whether wheat turns to cheat. I have examined, very carefully, many fields of wheat sown on very poor ground, and on good ground, in years when the wheat froze out badly, and at times when it did not. In no ease have I seen the slightest evidence that such transformation took place. I have seen wheat plants with scarcely any life in them—short, stunted, with but two or three grains in the head, and of a most sickly color. These were in very poor ground, and much injured by freezing out. There was plenty of cheat among them, but these all had the healthy growth—the dark green color—altogether different from that of any wheat plant, with its form of leaf and stalk as different. Wheat and cheat are sometimes found growing apparently out of the same stem, but so have trees of entirely different kinds. When traced out the stems had their own roots.

Cheat is a peculiar plant. It came up so thickly on a field added by purchase to the farm on which I am residing, that I cradled it for feed, finding it better than oats for horses. I cut it too ripe, and the ground was covered with seed. The same fall I had it ploughed up and drilled in rye. Scarcely any cheat was seen the next season. The ground was not disturbed, and the following season it again came up thickly. M. George W. Lane, of Aurora, Indiana, a few years ago presented to the State Board of Agriculture of that State a specimen of cheat, accompanied with the statement that his own and his neighbor’s old and well-established timothy meadows, where hay is raised and baled for the southern market, instead of producing timothy, had that year yielded a good crop of cheat, which they had cut for hay, but without knowledge of its value. This statement exhibits the peculiarity of the cheat plant.  It is a most excellent hay, and is altogether a too respectable plant to be the product of a badly put-in wheat-field.

The parasitic enemies of the wheat-field are the Hessian fly, the chinch bug, and the midge.

1. The Hessian fly and its remedy.—The received account of the introduction of this fly into the United States is known by every person, for its common name refers to it. That it was brought in some straw with the Hessian troops, employed in the revolution against us, is possible; but the history of like pests shows that sooner or later they spread over the whole earth where their favorite food may be grown and climatic influence will permit. The bee moth [I think they mean what is now known as the was moth. -ASC] and the curculio are instances of the fact that nearly all the products of the farm have their enemies. It is not necessary to describe this fly, nor particularize the mature of its depredations, except to say that it deposits its eggs, from twenty to forty in number, in the hollow of the blades of the wheat. The egg hatches a small, light-colored worm, in from four days to three weeks, according as the weather is warm or cool.

The worm crawls down the leaf between the sheathing of the leaf and the stem, firmly fixes itself there, sucking the juices or sap of the plant on which it lives.  It gradually becomes imbedded in the stem by the latter growing around it. As it increases in size, it becomes, in color, size, and shape, like a flax seed; hence this state of the larva is called the flax-seed state. In this condition it remains during the winter, unaffected by the severest cold. In May it is changed into the fly, and this fly lays its eggs higher upon the same stalk, and on others around it, and also on the spring wheat. These eggs hatch, and the worms undergo the same changes until in August, when they appear as flies, ready to deposit eggs on the young fall wheat plants. The fact that of so many eggs but few hatch (for not more than two or three worms are found in the same plant) shows that the Hessian fly has its deadly enemies. This is true, two of which I will notice, being parasites of this parasite.  Both these are flies, one of which deposits its eggs within the egg of the Hessian fly.  Both these eggs hatch, but the worm from the last-deposited egg is within the worm of the Hessian fly, and it lives upon it, gradually destroying it, until, having undergone its various changes, it emerges from the skin of the Hessian worm a fly, ready to deposit its eggs in those of the Hessian fly. The other parasitic insect lays its eggs in the larva when in the flax-seed state, which hatches within it and lives upon it. It is to these friendly insects we owe the fact that the Hessian fly does not spread over large districts of the wheat region, nor, indeed, in any part of it to any great extent, and that it is seldom destructive in the same place for more than a season or two. The friendly flies, by their rapid increase, soon drive the Hessian fly to other portions of the country in order to shun their fatal attacks. The usual remedy against the Hessian fly is late sowing of the winter wheat. Whilst this may ford some protection, it leads to habitual late sowing, by which the plant is weakened, and rendered less able to endure the changes of our winters. A greater loss is thus occasioned than would result from an occasional entire destruction of the crop by the fly. A strong-rooted plant will more. easily overcome a serious attack of the fly than a late sown and weak one can resist the freezing out to which it is certain to be exposed.

2. The Chinch bug.—In the northwestern States this bug has not been destructive, but in Missouri and in the southern States it has been at times a severe scourge. I have seen it but once, and then it quickly disappeared, doing no material injury. In the latter part of the last century it first appeared in the south, rapidly multiplying until its vast numbers destroyed every green plant. All crops are its prey—the maize and the grasses, as well as the cereals.  They cover every portion of the corn plant, and suck out its sap so rapidly at it wilts as if it had been cut down. No remedy to lessen its numbers or to mitigate its ravages is yet known. A wet season is fatal to it, as to most other of the noxious insects.

3. The Midge—With this insect I have no personal acquaintance; but the census report of 1860 tells its destructiveness in New York in the greatly decreased wheat product of that State. In 1850 it produced 13,121,498 bushels, and in 1860 but 8,681,100 bushels.

There appears to be a difference between writers on the character and habits of this fly, but Asa Fitch, of New York, must be regarded as the pest authority, from his personal inspection of it, and from his thorough knowledge of whatever relates to the injurious or beneficial insects of the farm. In his report to the State Board of Agriculture of New York, it is stated, that although it was not before known in this country, yet it suddenly appeared over many portions of the New England States and of New York, and that this was accounted for by the remarkably prolific character of the insect. It commences to bear when but three days old, and produces four young daily; thus in twenty days the progeny of a single midge is upwards of four millions. It has existed in Europe, and is there mentioned as depositing its eggs in the soft grain of the wheat in June and July; but here, he says, it is on the field always, sucking out the juice of the young plants, causing them to wither and die.  As yet he has been unable to find a male among them; seemingly all appear to be females; and that it has no natural enemy in this country as it has in Europe. The New York State Agricultural Society has imported these enemies with the hope of diminishing the ravages of this noxious insect. In one particular it is different from other insects. Dry weather is favorable for their existence and reproduction, but unfavorable for the midge. It not only attacks the cereals, but the grasses also; and hence, if grain-production was abandoned for some years, it would not tend to diminish the number of this destructive insect. In Mr. Klippart’s essay I find it described as a small, yellow fly, which appears about the middle of June, and during the early part of the evenings deposits its eggs on the heads of the wheat just before it blooms, and when it begins to open its coverings of leaves. When the larvæ are hatched they are white, but soon turn yellow; and live on the juices destined to fill the grain, which they appropriate, either wholly or partially, to themselves. When their growth is attained, they spring off the head to the ground and pass into the earth at the root of the plant, where they remain until transformed into the fly. No remedy has been found against its destructiveness, except by means of the propagation of its natural enemy. This is a dark fly that deposits its eggs within that of the midge, as in the case of one of the enemies of the Hessian fly. The worms hatched from these live within and upon the larve of the midge, but do not effect their destruction until they have left the wheat heads and descended to the earth.

The casualties affecting the wheat crop are but two—blowing down whilst in ear, and freezing out during the winter.

1. Blowing down—This casualty does not often occur to a serious extent, but it is a partial evil at nearly all times. I was forced to hog down my crop this year on account of it, and the long laid-by sickle had to be used very generally in this county. This evil may be much avoided in two ways—by selecting good varieties of wheats which have stiff straws, and by returning to the wheat crop the straw of previous crops, or the manure of stock fed upon it, for both have large quantities of silica, so essential to strengthening the straw against the storms which so frequently occur before harvest time.

2. Freezing out.—This casualty is, perhaps, more destructive to the wheat crop than all other misfortunes to which it is incident. Freezing out is of two kinds. In the northern districts of the wheat region where the soil is light, but rich, and the winters dry and cold, the strong prairie winds blow the snow from the fields when it has not fallen in sufficient quantities, exposing the light soil to freeze into dust, which is blown from the roots of the wheat, thus laying them bare, when they are soon destroyed by freezing. The only remedy is in substituting spring wheat for winter.  The other kind of freezing out occurs in the middle and southern portions of the wheat region, where the soil is more generally a tenacious clay. This soil retains the rains, and, as there is a deficiency of snow, the water freezes, and in expanding swells the ground upwards, breaking the roots that may be below the freezing, and forcing up the remaining parts of the roots with it. A gradual thaw first melts the ice near the surface, and as the soil is freed from the water it falls from and below the roots which cannot sink down with the soil, for the lower portions of the roots are still imbedded in frozen ground. In this way most of the roots are gradually thrown on the swface, where they freeze. The remedy against this natural and wide-spread evil is to render the ground more loose by enriching it with stable manure, which will give a more ready passage to the water below the roots, and will also give a more vigorous growth to the roots; by early sowing, which gives more time for the roots to obtain such growth, and by the substitution of drill planting for broad-cast sowing. I shall recur to all under their proper heads. Having considered the nature of the wheat plant as to its varieties, elementary constituents, germination, and growth, and the diseases, enemies, and casualties 1o which it is subjected, and the remedies of these, I proceed to the second head of the last general division of this essay, namely:

These I shall divide into two classes, natural and artificial:
Natural soils.—A cereal so universally consumed as wheat is not limited in its growth to a particular kind of soil, as has often been stated. The red and yellow clays, sandy loams, or light, carbonaceous soils, are all well adapted to its production under the conditions we generally find them as to depth of snows and the kind of wheat. Where deep snows protect the crop, as north of the southern margin of our northern lakes, a light, carbonaceous soil is productive, which in more southern latitudes would be unsuitable. Where the snow is not an adequate protection, the substitution of spring wheat obviates. the natural difficulties to which the winter varieties are there subject.

Artificial soils—I include under this head those ameliorated by deep ploughing, drainage, or manures. The necessity of the first and second of these depends upon the character of the land. A level, tenacious clay soil, which is lot made dry by one or both these methods, is unfit for wheat production, for no plant more demands a dry soil than wheat. This is seen not only in its liability to freeze out, but in the superiority of the wheats of dry climates, such as California, and in the marked excellency of the crop of 1856, when no rain fell on it from the opening of spring until it was harvested. I must content myself with this reference to their utility, desiring to dwell more at length on the third means of ameliorating the soil—manuring.  There are three kinds of manures that may with profit be used by the generality of farmers: barnyard manures, green manures, and some mineral manures.

   1. Barnyard manure—There is no crop that shows so quickly and to so great an extent the benefits of this manure as the wheat crop. The effects of the slightest manuring are readily seen. It gives a strong fall growth to the roots of the plant, enabling it the better to endure winter freezing, and by its pulverizing agency renders the soil friable—a condition so essential to a vigorous growth. Its summer influences are not less beneficial. This vigorous growth of the fall is early resumed in the spring, enabling the plants to overcome the attacks of the fly. It rapidly hurries them through the ripening stage, thus lessening, as already stated, the danger from rust. Mr. Hendricks, in the letter already quoted from, refers to both these; when speaking of one of the fields, he says: “In this field, and on the poorest part in it, (clay land,) I had well manured one acre in the centre of the field, and on which were at least thirty bushels of No. 1 wheat; neither the rust nor the fly had affected it.”” This was his experience in a season when the rust was very bad, and the Hessian fly had injured other portions of the field. These most desirable results are produced by the manure furnishing an adequate supply of mineral substances, such as the ash analysis of wheat shows to be a part of its elements, potash, phosphoric acid, and silica. By rendering clay soils darker and looser, they attract greater heat and dry it out rapidly, rendering the condition of the soil more like that of the dry, trade-wind region. It is in this heat and dryness that a wheat soil materially differs from a maize soil. The one should always be dry, the other always moist. In an article on Indian corn, published in the Agricultural Report of the Patent Office for 1861, the writer showed at some length the necessity of much humus in the soil for that crop; that by its action as a non-conductor of heat it retained the moisture in the soil. But the wheat crop is injured by such retention, Its growing season is so long protracted, and its ripening stage so slow in its changes, that the rust is almost certain to fall upon it. This is a common complaint in rich western lands that have but little sand and much humus. And rich clay soils are found to be better wheat lands when the humus is much exhausted; if poor, when enriched by barnyard manure.  When this manure is productive of so great advantages, it should be a leading object of every farmer to preserve and increase its quantity.

   2. Green manures—One of the most satisfactory parts of the census report of 1860 is the greatly increased amount of clover-seed grown. In 1849 it was 468,978 bushels, and in 1859, 929,010 bushels—an increase of nearly one hundred per cent. The increase is 460,032 bushels, which would sow, at eight acres to the bushel, 3,680,250 acres; and as this crop is always kept for two years at the very least, there was, in 1859, 7,360,612 acres more in clover than in 1849. The increase of other grass seeds have been in proportion. Although good husbandry demands a much greater increase, yet that which has been made gives encouraging hope that the destruction of our soils, so characteristic of our farming in past years, is about to cease, and that green manures will receive that appreciation they so highly merit.

Looking at the extent of wheat cultivation, especially in the west, it is obvious that barnyard manure cannot be produced in quantities at all approaching the demands of that husbandry which should regard the fertility of the soil as one of the highest ends it can have in view. Special manures, such as guano, admissible near the seaboard and for products bearing a high price, cannot be used in the western States. The only means for general manuring is in turning under green clover crops and in hogging down others, such as corn, rye and oats.

Besides returning to the soil so much vegetable matter, a green clover crop thoroughly pulverizes it—a condition, as already observed, of absolute necessity to a vigorous fall growth of the wheat plant. The dryness of our summers, following heavy rains in the spring, sc bake and clod our soils as to render them almost unfit for wheat cultivation, when deficient in vegetable matter. A winter’s freezing could not more reduce these clods to a proper pulverization than the rotting of a green clover crop beneath them.

   3. Mineral manures—There are but two of these that can profitably be used by the western farmer—gypsum, or plaster, and lime. In connexion with clover crops both are valuable, but especially the gypsum, called by chemists sulphate of lime, being composed of sulphuric acid and lime. The ash analysis of clover shows that these constitute a large portion of its mineral elements, and hence the cause of its heavy growth when gypsum is sown on the young clover. This, as well as the great value to the wheat crop of clover so manured, will be seen from the following experiment made by General Orr, of Laporte county, Indiana, whose intelligence and energy have made him one of the best farmers in the United States. His statement to the agricultural society of that county is as follows:  “The field contained thirty-seven acres, was of a light, loamy soil of medium gravity; had been covered with scattered trees of burr oak and hickory, with frequent patches of hazel; was brought into cultivation ten years ago; had produced three crops of wheat, two of corn, one of oats, and in March, 1853, was sowed to clover among wheat, all without manure.  It was pastured in the fall of 1853, and up to the first of June, 1854, when everything was turned off, and on the 10th and 11th of June we sowed six barrels of plaster on twenty-eight acres, leaving nine acres without. Two barrels were of the Oswego and four of the Grand River plaster. The clover grew well all over the field, but best on the plastered part, and by the 20th of July that on which the Grand River plaster was used was all lodged; that on which the Oswego was used, but partially so, while the unplastered part stood up and was much lighter than either of the others. The whole was ploughed under six inches deep, between the 20th and last of July, and the ground well harrowed over the first week in September. The wheat was all sowed broadcast, two bushels to the acre, and well harrowed in, between the 10th and 11th of the same month. The field had been carefully divided, before sowing, into three parts, across the plastered and unplastered parts; two contained twelve acres each, and one thirteen acres. Twelve acres were sown with the Hutchinson (white) wheat, twelve acres with the Soule (white) wheat, and thirteen acres with the Mediterranean. The fly made its appearance on both varieties of the white wheat last fall, but was confined to the parts not plastered. They appeared again this spring all over both varieties of the white wheat, but the wheat grew so strong where it had been plastered that it was well advanced in filling before their effect began to show itself. The heavy winds and rains at the commencement and during harvest so prostrated the affected part that we were unable to gather it, and my best judgment is that three to four bushels per acre were left on the ground. The Mediterranean was slightly injured in a few places, but not to materially affect its yield. We gathered and threshed the different varieties separately, and that which grew on the plastered parts separate from the unplasted part. The result was as follows: The Hutchinson wheat produced 7⅓ bushels per acre on the part not plastered, and 15¾ bushels per acre on the part plastered; Soule wheat produced 8¼ bushels per acre on the part not plastered, and 19 1⁄10 on the part plastered; while the Mediterranean produced 19¼ bushels to the acre on the part not plastered, and 20⅛ bushels to the acre on the part plastered. I had used plaster frequently before with marked success, but had never noted its effects with the same care as on the present occasion. Therefore, from the facts now before me, I draw the following conclusions:  1. That three-fourths to one bushel of plaster per acre on lands which have produced grain for a number of years in succession, applied on a well-set, growing clover crop, at some six inches high, and ploughed under when the seed balls have all turned brown, will add fifteen to thirty per cent. to a succeeding wheat crop over the same clover turned under without plaster.  2. That the vigor imparted to the growing grain by the use of plaster will, in a great degree, prevent the ravages of the fly on such varieties as the fly works most upon. 3. That clover and plaster, on most soils, are the cheapest manures that the farmer can use, yet he should not neglect the use of any others within "his reach.” He adds that the cost of the plaster used and of putting it on was about $14, or fifty cents per acre.

These extraordinary results were, perhaps, increased by the want of sufficient lime in the soil; but the principal cause must be found in the larger amount of carbonaceous matter yielded by the parts plastered, and its consequent increased friability of the soil. The action of gypsum is to absorb and fix the ammonia in atmosphere and rain water, forming by its union with it sulphate of ammonia and carbonate of lime, ready for the succeeding crop of wheat, which demands ammonia largely in forming its nitrogen of the gluten and albumen. Wheat requires mineral elements more than carbonaceous matter, as every farmer may readily see by noticing how fertile for wheat the burning of an old log makes the soil. The burning drives most of the carbon into the air, in the form of carbonic gas, but leaves the mineral elements of the tree on the soil. Clover produces one hundred per cent. more in such places, showing that these mineral elements are alike essential to both wheat and clover. When turned under, the clover crop yields all its mineral elements to the succeeding wheat crop, not only those derived from ashes or plaster, but those also which its long roots extract from the lower parts of the soil, drawing them to the surface for the crop that follows it. With results of this importance from the use of gypsum with clover, the development of gypsum beds and its manufacture becomes an object interesting to every farmer, and it is to be regretted that plaster is so scarce to the western farmer.

Lime acts as a manure in three ways: by what it gives directly to a plant requiring it as one of its constituent elements; by decomposing vegetable matter, thus fitting it for the immediate support of the growing crop; and by making soluble the silica and other minerals of the soil. The importance of this last-named action may be seen from the analysis. To every ten bushels of wheat raised there are about 1,200 pounds of straw, and this straw contains 72 pounds of minerals, of which 47 is silica. Where the straw is removed from the field it will be readily seen how great is the need of this solvent action of lime to render the flint in our soils capable of supplying their large amount of silica, for the silica is dissolved flint. But an immediate and visible effect of lime depends upon the amount of vegetable matter in the soil. A neighbor who limed several of his worn-out fields remarked to me that he would not give leaves of trees for any amount of lime; for alongside one of the fields the leaves had blown on it from an adjoining woodland, and on this portion he had raised excellent wheat. Here the lime found vegetable matter to act upon; in the other portions of the field it did not. Hence the liming should be on a full clover crop, and both turned under together, or on a heavy blue grass sod.

The third head under the last general division is cultivation, which includes the breaking up of the soil, keeping it loose and free from weeds or grass, selecting seed wheat, the time and manner of sowing gnd spring harrowing.  I will first consider the implements necessary for these operations, which are the plough, the harrow, and the drill, and the times and modes of using them.

   1. The plough—It is not necessary to speak of the plough, further than in connexion with the turning under green and dried crops. No operation is more important than this, and none more disliked, from the insufficiency of our plough to its proper accomplishment. The old custom of burning off "the trash” is not yet obsolete, because of the defective turning qualities of our ploughs. The plough has three things to do: to cut the farrow-slice, raise and turn it, and so to do it as to bury all growth upon it. The union of the lifting and turning forces admits of an almost endless variety of combination, but the attempts to make ploughs for general purposes have prevented that attention to a combination best adapted to turning under heavy green or dried crops.  A plough choking every few steps is a trial to which the patience of Job was, fortunately, not subjected. To do their work thoroughly, the plough must have stronger lifting and turning forces in front, that the furrow-slice may be quickly drawn from under the beam. My experience has satisfied me that these forces must always be equal. To give them requisite power over the furrow-slice, the share must rise more than it does, with a corresponding rise in the lower part of the mould-board; its top have an equal turning power, and its twist be such that the cleaning and turning will be most quickly and best done.  I have seen but one such plough, and the maker, a skilful workman, confessed he could not make such another, although he had the same pattern upon which to turn the mould-board, and the same plough before him to stock by. I mention this to show the great difficulty of properly adjusting so complex a union as the lifting and turning forces of the plough—a problem as hard to solve practically as the mathematical one of the forces acting on the boomerang.  Every person knows how often the action of his plough has been changed by the simple act of sharpening the share, and hence cast shares are preferred to wrought ones. When a plough will have been constructed such as I have alluded to, it will indeed become such a fertilizer as Tull and Mechi thought they had found in the constant use of those we have.

   2. The harrow.—The harrows in general use are too small; they simply level the surface, without pulverizing it deeply. Greater weight and length of teeth are needed. I prefer the heavy double V to any other, for it is less easily tossed about, and consequently forces the clods to yield to it. The usual mode of not breaking our wheat lands until just before sowing, when it breaks up cloddy from the action of our summer droughts, demand that the roller should be alternately used with the harrow until the soil is completely pulverized.

   3. The drill.—It is not necessary to speak further of it than to name it as one of the indispensable implements of wheat cultivation. Its use will be dwelt upon at length. In selecting a drill, the farmer should choose the most simple in construction, and of these the best manufactured one.

The times and modes of using these implements.—In the use of the plough for the wheat crop there is a wide difference between American and European farming. The fallow system is universal there; here it is scarcely known, and when it is, so partially used that a European would hardly admit that it was a fallow. The causes of this difference are found in the facts that with us the wheat crop is second to that of the maize crop, which requires the constant use of the plough from early spring until the harvest demands the time of the farmer, and that the large amount of humus in our virgin soil made the fallow unnecessary, and established a practice of single ploughing long after the destruction of this humus. But in the fact that it is now so destroyed to a great extent, and much decreased to a still greater, we see the necessity of the fallow, and hence I shall examine its merits fully. I divide fallows into three kinds—the naked fallow, the green fallow, and the crop fallow.

   1. The naked fallow—The object of the fallow is to prepare the soil by repeated ploughings for the wheat crop. Its purpose is to enrich the soil by enabling it to absorb more readily the fertilizing gases from the atmosphere, by destroying weeds, and by thoroughly pulverizing it to allow the roots to grow so vigorously as not only to insure a good crop, but also add to the fertility of the land. The celebrated Jethro Tull made the fallow his sole basis of farming operations, maintaining that these elements of the atmosphere and the increased roots of crops more than compensated for the straw and grain taken from the soil. His success was great at first, but in the end his farm became exhausted. Still, while the naked fallow could not accomplish so much, its merits are so great that even where labor is so high as in the United States, it should become an essential part of our wheat tillage. The Romans adapted the naked fallow to its full extent of six ploughings, and so do some European farmers when their object is to deepen the soil, as well as to prepare it for a crop. The general effects of such a fallow on the soil is thus stated by Thaer, the highest scientific and practical authority we have. A simple ploughing in spring or autumn certainly will turn up and break the surface of the land, but it will not divide it sufficiently to break the clods and reduce them to loose earth. The soil, when clodded together, soon becomes hardened into compound masses when it is covered without being broken. It even preserves the impression made upon it by the plough, and when the ploughing has been performed while the ground was wet the divided portions exposed to the heat of the sun become as hard as tile. Land, when suffered to acquire this state, is highly unproductive, because the greater part of the plants having fibrous roots are unable to penetrate these clods, and consequently are forced to turn around them, and the power of vegetation contained in the portion of the ground which they occupy is, therefore, wholly lost. The soil might as well be composed, for the most part, of stones, as of mould thus conglomerated. There is scarcely any means by which these clods can be effectually broken except by continued fallowing during the whole of the year, the effect of which is to bring them all successively to the surface, where they may be exposed to the action of the atmosphere, and having imbibed moisture and become softened, they may be broken by the harrow and other implements. If this process can be continued from the end of summer to the seed time of the following autumn, and care be taken that each operation shall be performed when the soil possesses the proper degree of humidity, the field will be transformed into a light, loose powder, and the nutritive and fertilizing particles which it may contain will be brought into action. Thus we frequently see fields which were to all appearances exhausted become exceedingly fertile after having been carefully fallowed, cven though they have not received any additional supply of manure.”  He thus sums up the benefit of such a fallow: “1. A suitable increase in the depth of the layer of vegetable earth by means of deep ploughings. 2. The reversion of the earth. 3. Its pulverization. 4. Its due admixture. 5. Its exposure to the influences of the atmosphere; and 6. The destruction of all the weeds on it If, by means of a fallow, all these advantages can be obtained, the benefit arising from it will be sensibly felt through a long series of years.”

I have given these extracts as showing the nature of these long fallows and their important results. It is the system of Mechi, now attracting so much attention. They show the cause of an evil we all acknowledge—that of stirring the ground when too wet. When stirred too dry, as our wheat culture almost always finds our fields, the effect is not much less injurious, for the clods beneath the surface are not pulverized except by severe winter freezing, which comes too late for the fall growth of the wheat. When the soil has such a combination of clay loam or sand loam and humus that it does not bake or become cloddy, a single ploughing, if early done, and well harrowed before sowing, may be sufficient; but how few of our fields have such soil. With the aid of the ameliorating effects of our severe winters, three ploughings would probably suffice for our most exhausted soils; the first in the fall, the second in June, and the third in September, at the time of sowing.

   2. The green fallows—I have given this name to the turning under any green crop as a manure for a succeeding wheat crop. The proper time of turning under is when the united purposes of manuring and pulverization can best be accomplished, and this is when the ground still has enough moisture to break up foose, and the green crop time enough to rot before sowing. In the experiment of General Orr we see that he ploughed the clover under in July; but, as usually performed, neither of these objects are fully attained. The ploughing is deferred until the beginning of September, when the ground breaks up cloddy, and the clover has not time to decay so as to immediately benefit the wheat crop. The ploughing is deferred until this late period from habit, in order to complete the hay harvest, thresh the wheat, and to give time to the clover seeds to ripen that the ground may seed itself; but by this postponement I am satisfied much more is lost than gained. So with our oat crop.  It is usually hogged down in August, for it is not turned under when green, that the oats may ripen. By the time it is eaten the ground is dry and hard from the trampling of the hogs, and when ploughed in September the dry straw has not time to decompose.

   3. The crop fallows—In countries where root crops are extensively raised, as the turnip in England, and fed upon the land, or in time for the manure to be returned to the soil, this kind of fallow is one of the best preparations for a wheat crop. But we produce root crops to a very limited extent only, and our only crop fallows are tobacco and corn. The early maturity of the tobacco, and the clean cultivation it requires, would make it a good fallow, were it not too exhausting on the soil, and grown in too limited quantities to answer for a general fallow. Much wheat is sown in the corn, but this crop is also exhausting, especially in silica, which is not returned to the goil in time for the wants of the wheat straw; besides, the wheat cannot be drilled in, but is sown broadcast. These difficulties make crop fallows of little utility in our farming.  There are two matters necessary to be noticed in connexion with these fallows—the proper depth of the ploughings and the times of manuring them when barnyard manure is used. When the naked fallow is first ploughed in the fall, this ploughing should be deep when the deepening of the soil is desired, for then the subsoil can be ameliorated by the action of the frosts. If the fallow is a summer one only, the subsoil should not be disturbed, for it will be unfit to mix with the top soil.

There are many seeds which reguire great compactness of soil. All grass seeds are of this character, for the delicate fibres of their roots perish in a loose soil when dried. This is the reason why grass seeds sown on oats so often perish. The experiments of Peter Love, of England, shows that wheat is also injured to some extent by such loose condition of the soil. He raised a crop fallow of potatoes, and after they were dug put the ground in wheat, ploughing one portion ten inches deep, another five, and another three. The yield was as follows:

The experiment indicates that the soil below the grain should be somewhat compact, even in the moist climate of England. [I would draw exactly the opposite conclusion from these results. Deep ploughing, though necessary after a hardpan is formed (usually by poor soil management), but before that, disturbs the soil to a greater depth and therefore increases compaction. Thus the shallow ploughed land would likely be >less< compacted. -ASC]  Our dry climate would; require it still more. Hence the last ploughing should be shallow; or if the ground is loose from the turning under a green crop in time to decompose, a thorough harrowing would be sufficient. Another reason why the surface only should be stirred in such a case is, that the decomposed vegetable matter should not be turned on the surface, but remain in close proximity to the roots of the wheat crop. When barnyard manure is to be used in connexion with the fallow, if it is unfermented it should be spread over the ground before the first ploughing, if it is a summer fallow. If a winter one also, not until the second ploughing, for the winter rains would carry the strength of the manure too deeply; if the manure is fermented, not until before the last ploughing. This and the harrowing would well mix it with the top soil, where it is most needed, for the fall rains would carry its fertilizing properties to the roots of the wheat.

Harrowing.—So far as my observation enables me to judge, there is no operation of the farm, connected with wheat production, that is so carelessly and slovenly performed as harrowing.  To level somewhat the surface seems to be the only object with most, and not such a pulverization of the soil as the wheat crop demands. In the moist climate of England this is well performed; but here, where the dryness of our falls and the cloddy condition of the ploughed ground demand especial care, it is performed with a light harrow, tumbling about over the clods, rounding them somewhat and raising a dust. To be used effectively the harrow should be such as I have mentioned, and should follow the plough closely, for our fall winds are so drying that in a day or two the clods are as hard as Mexican adobe. The fallow would do more to pulverize the soil than the harrow, and hence a summer ploughing would save much harrowing.

Rolling—Upon the supposition that there has been no fallow, it is almost an impossibility to pulverize the soil, unless the roller and the harrow are used alternately until pulverization is effected. This is not done, but the labor that should be devoted to it is given to ploughing another field—demanding more seed, more labor in cutting, with a less yield than if what had been done were well done. Better have the second field in clover than making it the pretense of a wheat-field.

Selecting seed—The varieties of wheat are so numerous, and their peculiar excellencies so dependent on soil, climate, and cultivation, that an enumeration of these varieties would be useless. Farmers should compare wheats with each other, and when the best is-found it should be preferred, although its purchase may require a small outlay of money. When a good variety, such as yields well, is hardy, and commands a good market price, has been obtained, care should be taken to improve it.  This can be done in various ways. The anecdote of the origin of the barrel wheat is well known. A farmer was in the habit of selecting his seed wheat by striking the sheaves across the head of an empty barrel; and as the largest, earliest matured, and the best grains shattered most easily, he thus selected them. He soon became celebrated for his superior variety of wheat, and sold large quantities for seed.  He called it the "barrel wheat;” a better name would have been common-sense wheat. Every farmer should raise his seed wheat separate from the general crop, on well-manured and well-prepared ground. It should be sown early, and nothing but wheat should be allowed to mature; cockle, cheat, and smut should be carefully weeded out of it. It should be threshed with a flail or across the head of a barrel, and then passed through the best fan mill that can be found or had.  How many thousands of farmers, for their seed, now go to the pile of wheat thrashed by horse-power, with its immature grains, mixed with cheat, cockle, and smut, and sow it, expecting to reap a good crop, but forgetting that they have been told “as ye sow so shall ye reap.” The product of such wheat-sowing is brought to every wheat-buyer, and the one nearest to me has to keep a fanning mill to purge it. Since horse-thrashers are so universally employed, but few farmers keep a cleaning mill, and the result is, that cheat raising is on the increase, and so is the notion that wheat turns to cheat. So it does, but in a very natural way; the seed produces its kind.

Time and manner of sowing.—The winter wheat is a biennial plant, and the best opinion is, that if sown as early as June it would not shoot the first summer. I do not know that any experiment has been made to test the correctness of this opinion; but it is practically not important, for the Hessian fly threatens the destruction of early-sown wheat. The first week in September is universally regarded as the best time for sowing; but when the fly is apprehended it is delayed from two to four weeks after this. My opinion is, that a greater injury follows this late sowing than benefit. The occasional saving of a crop from the ravages of the fly is but a poor return for the greater loss. The fear of the fly is too common, and is often only an excuse for our tardiness. The sowing is postponed until the dry weather of Indian summer sets in, during which the wheat makes but little growth. This is followed by rains and severe freezing, which tears out the tender and feeble roots from the soil, and thus a worse evil than the Hessian fly is brought upon the crop. Under no circumstances should the time of sowing be later than the 10th of September.

2. The modes of sowing wheat.—These are of three kinds—sowing broadcast and harrowing the seed in, sowing the same way and ploughing it in, and drilling it.  I will not consider them separately, but refer to some of my farming experience and observation to set forth their relative merits. The first year of my farming I had twenty acres put in wheat, which was sown broadcast and harrowed in about the 1st of September. The last rain previously was on the 20th of August, and the next was on the 20th of October.  The soil was good, tolerably well broken up, and harrowed. The seed commenced to sprout, some came up, when the drought checked the further growth.  I examined its condition cvery day, and soon found insects preying on the sprouted grain. The worst of these was the small, red ant, which eats out the softened germ, attracted apparently by the sugar formed from the starch.  When the rain fell, in October, the grains uninjured came up, but there was not one in twenty of what had been sown. The twenty acres yielded 109 bushels.  In the same fall, and about the same time, a farmer of this county broke up a small field; and with the first drill that came here he drilled in a portion, sowed another broadcast and ploughed it in, and the other portion he harrowed in.  The drilled wheat came up slowly, and grew slowly but steadily. Not many grains failed to come up. That ploughed in came up in irregular patches, and in some. places apparently in rows, where it had been covered deepest.  It suffered much from the drought, and much never came up at all. But little of that harrowed in came up, and seemed to yield to the drought where it did.  When the rain fell these portions retained their relative positions, and the yield at harvest was in accordance with their fall growth. Again: some years after, when drills were becoming popular, there occurred one of these freezing-out winters that destroy our clover and wheat fields. A neighbor who had put in well a field of good soil, with wheat sown broadcast and harrowed in, had it completely frozen out. He remarked to me that ho could well have afforded to have purchased a drill to put it in, and then to have burnt it, rather than sustain the failure from broadcast sowing. I examined that spring, with much care, many drilled fields and many sown broadcast, in some of which the seed had been harrowed in and in others ploughed in, and invariably found the drilled wheat firmly fixed in the soil, with no roots on the surface, except here and there where a wash had carried the top soil away. But in the other fields there were but few plants that had not many roots on the surface; most of them had no root in the soil; many but a portion of a single root. In pulling the drilled wheat it was firmly fixed, the crown close on the surface soil, whilst the other yielded, showing the crown above the soil, with a portion of the roots below it exposed.  This was the case with the best of the plants. To such facts I will be told (for I have often been) that one of the best crops of wheat raised by the farmer answering me was from broadcast sowing.  I grant this; but under what circumstances was it done? When the soil was at its best, when no drought occurred in the fall, and no freezing out in the winter. Why recollect the one successful crop and forget the many unsuccessful? Let us now examine into the causes of this great difference between the drilled and broadcast-sown fields. In making my examination I dug up some of the drilled plants, and some of the best sown broadcast.  The secondary roots of the drilled plants were double in number compared with those of the broadcast sowing, much longer, with a much greater number of fibrous branches, and with an inclination deeper in the soil. These are the facts, and the philosophy of them will be seen from what I have said on the germination of the seed and the growth of the plant. Wheat put in with a drill is sown at the depth of about three inches.  The seeds are placed regularly; the space for the growth of each plant is equal. If a drought comes on, as it so often does in our falls, the grain is so far down that it is not much affected. Plants have two sources from which they derive the moisture necessary to their growth in time of drought—that which descends through the atmosphere in the form of dew, and that which rises up through the subsoil. Rain is the common source of both these supplies. When drought parches the surface soil, the dews are of little or no consequence to the roots of plants; its purpose is, in its daily evaporation and nightly condensation, to envelop the blades or leaves and stews with a moist atmosphere.  The sources of their evaporation are supplied in droughts by the evaporations of the subsoil moisture ough the leaves of plants and trees and from the surface of the ground. Their subsoil moisture is drawn to the surface by capillary attraction, and the heated and dry condition of the surface, air, and soil. As it ascends, the roots of plants lay hold of it and carry it to the stem, branches, and leaves. An observation of twenty years, and constant examination during the years of our great droughts of 1854 and 1856, convince me that this is the precise office of dews and subsoil moisture. A law of the growth of the root is, that it always turns to the source of its nutriment.  Now, the grain of drilled wheat being deposited as deeply as its germination will allow, its roots, both the primary or tap root, and the secondary, are beneath the influence of the surface droughts, and, receiving their moisture from the subsoil, they turn toward it. Hence the fact of the roots of drilled wheat having a downward inclination. The wheat covered in by the harrow lies so near the surface that a drought soon dries the soil around it, stopping the growth at all stages. The roots get their moisture from the dews at night, meeting the evaporated subsoil moisture at the surface of the ground, and the roots, finding their chief supply at that point, incline to the surface. Hence they are checked in their autumnal growth, and are soon laid bare by the freezing of winter.

Spring harrowing—In English husbandry there are cultivators so constructed that a tooth passes between each of the drilled rows of wheat, there being as many teeth as that of the drill. There wheat is rather cultivated than harrowed. But in the United States, where the rigors of winter and the dryness of spring (cracking open the soil) render the use of the harrow more imperative, it is almost wholly neglected. The reason of this is the pressing demand of spring labor for the corn crops, and the custom of sowing clover seed on it in March. Still, there are many who could harrow their wheatfields, but do not, simply because it is not usual to do so. I quote Thaer to show its utility:
“Wheat requires more careful and continuous attention throughout the whole period of its vegetation than any other kind of cereal, and it amply repays all the labor and pains bestowed upon it.  If it is only just beginning to vegetate in the spring, and the soil is tolerably dry, nothing will prove so beneficial as to pass a harrow, having iron teeth, over it. By this means the crust will be broken up, which has been formed over the ground during the past winter, and the superficial stratum of the soil brought into direct contact with the atmosphere; the coronal roots, which shoot about this time, there find around them a soil recently impregnated with atmospheric matter, which tends greatly to favor the growth of the plants, while those weeds which shoot up at this season will all then be destroyed by the action of the harrow. A fine day should be chosen for this operation, which must be boldly undertaken. If, after this, the field has every appearance of being newly sown, and no green leaf, or, indeed, anything but the bare ground, is perceptible, then there is every reason to hope that the operation will be attended with success. Should a few torn leaves or blades of wheat be perceptible, it will not matter, provided that the plants themselves are not torn up. After a lapse of eight or ten days, if the weather is favorable, the plants will be seen to shoot up afresh, and the field will present a much better and greener aspect than it did before the operation. The farmer may be pardoned for anything but the omission of performing this operation at the most favorable and propitious moment. Everything else should be set aside for the time being; in order that all the teams may be brought to work in harrowing the wheat-fields.”

I heartily concur in all that he says, and my experience is, that it is almost impossible to pull out any of the plants. Drilled plants would defy the harrow.  The “propitious moment” in this country for harrowing is in April, when the surface is dry and cracked open. Clover seed should be sown immediately after the harrow, and before any rain has fallen.

The fourth and last head under the second general division is harvesting. It includes the proper time for cutting, the best mode of doing this; binding, shocking, and stacking; threshing and cleaning; the proper place to stack the straw and how to dispose of it.

This experiment indicates that in the last stage of ripening the bran of the grain becomes thicker at the expense of the starch. There is a general concurrence in the opinion that wheat cut in the dough makes fairer flour; but we have had no carefully made American experiments to determine the matter now under consideration. I have cut small portions of wheat when green, so that it yet showed some milk, and it did not shrivel, nor did the straw mould.  The weather, however, was dry.

   2. The best mode of cutting—The statistics relating to farming machinery, in the census report for 1860, furnish the experimental opinion of the American farmers. The value of such machinery, in 1850, was $6,842,611, and in 1860, $17,862,514, an increase of 160 per cent. A large part of this machinery was the reapers. In the last ten years they have been introduced into every portion of the wheat region, but especially in the northwestern States, where the scarcity of labor and the increased wheat production rendered their aid indispensable. Even if they were no speedier than the cradle, the fact that it substitutes horse-power for human labor, is sufficient to insure their general use, for in this way harvest labor is doubled, and therefore the harvest crop may be doubled. The reaper is one of the leading causes of the greatly increased wheat product of the country. During the past year the crops could not have been secured, owing to the absence of so much farm labor, had it not been for the great increase of reapers.

The power and wealth of Great Britain consist in its vast machinery. With a population of 21,000,000, it uses steam-power equal to the labor of 600,000,000 of men. We have grown great by the use of labor-saving machinery in our manufactures and transportation, and the more it is applied to agricultural pursuits the cheaper production will become, and, as a consequence, more will be raised and consumed. In selecting a reaper, the farmer should be governed by the fact that it is well made and of good material, rather than by any supposed or real superiority of the patent. A badly made one soon becomes a loss of time and a constant vexation.

   3. Bindings shocking, and stacking.—The harvest season of 1862 reminded us of the necessity of doing these matters well. Whilst rains are not usually to be apprehended during our harvest, yet they often come unexpectedly. In binding, the bands should always be tightly drawn, else in the curing of the straw they become so loose that the hauling in and stacking are retarded—a time when expedition is necessary. Shocking cannot be too well done. Not more than one dozen sheaves should be put in a single shock—ten in the body of it, and two used as cap sheaves. In building it the butts should be firmly placed on the ground and in the stubble, and the sheaves firmly balanced against each other, else they will slip, and the shock fall down. The tops should be well pressed together, andp the cap sheaves well spread out and firmly put on. After every heavy wind they should be examined. Stacking is often too carelessly done. With the expectation that the threshing-machine will soon come, the work is (one less for the preservation of the wheat than that it may undergo a sweating. «What is done should bewell done,” is a motto applicable to this part of the harvest work. In stacking, the middle must always be rounded well, firmly built, and the outer sheaves be considerably inclined. To prevent slipping, the butt straws of each sheaf should be well forced into those of the sheaves on which it is to lie. The topping must be carefully done, leaving no place for rain to penetrate, and so fastening the top sheaves that they can neither slip nor blow off.

   4. Threshing and cleaning—The threshing is now done everywhere by horse or steam power. The only point for the farmer to consider is whether it is better to employ an eight-horse power thresher, or the smaller two-horse power. The larger are now mostly used, but there are many considerations favoring the smaller in localities where the wheat crop is not very large.  The time between the hay harvest and for sowing wheat is generally employed in threshing, and a number of neighbors associate together sufficient to attend the larger thresher. This is in the most oppressive part of the year on account of heat, and the strength of the farmer is exhausted fiy the labor of the harvest.  It interferes with ploughing for the wheat crop, and the August rains cannot be taken advantage of for this purpose. If farmers generally had a two-horse power the threshing could be done after the wheat crop was put in. Besides, these two-horse powers would be useful in many other operations of the farmer—in grinding meal, stock feed, in pressing sorghum, sawing wood, &c.  But in districts where large crops are raised, as in the prairies, the larger thresher must be used, that the work may be well done. The best threshers, like the best reapers, are those that are made best. Cleaning the wheat after its threshing is almost obsolete. The threshers clean very imperfectly, leaving in the wheat much cockle, cheat, and smut. The want of discrimination among buyers has led the farmer to market his wheat as it comes from the thresher.  But this is now slowly changing, and buyers are beginning to see that cheat does not turn to wheat. A good winnowing mill must soon be once more in every farmer’s barn, and the wheat carefully cleaned. It should be kept so, especially from mice and rats. A corn and wheat granary should be on every farm, built on posts, which shiould be tinned or covered with sheet iron, with projecting tops of the same material in the form of inverted basins, and the whole well painted.

5. The proper place to stack the straw and how it should be disposed of —
When a farmer selects the place to stack his wheat, he ought to have two purposes in view—to feed the straw to his stock, and to increase the amount of manure. As now generally used, the first only of these objects is accomplished. The extent to which straw is as food may be seen from the census report for 1860. Turning to the columns of hay and of animals using it, we see the increase of hay is 38 per centum, whilst of horses it is 41, of cattle 94, and of mules 100.” Here is a great disproportion between hay food and the animals eating it. That cut up corn has largely increased as a foddering substance is very certain. Still a great and a general reliance is placed on the straw pile. I know of no farmer that does not make this use of it. Its nutritious value is much less than that of good hay, but it costs much less, and it keeps stock in much healthier condition than when fed on timothy hay alone. The farmer who values manure as he should, will always provide stalls for his horses, mules, and cattle, that he may keep them sheltered and save their manure. In these he should feed his hay and comn fodder during the nights and mornings. At 10 o’clock all ought fo be turned into the barnyard for exercise, sunlight, and water, until evening; and during this time they should have free access to the straw pile. A good deal of it will be wasted, but, before stalling them for the night, this waste should be forked into the stable for bedding and manure. Hence the proper place of stacking the straw pile is in the barnyard contiguous to the stalls. But in order to save some hauling, a very different place is generally chosen. It is stacked in the field where it was grown, or in an adjoining clover or grass field, and the stock suffered to trample fields on which they should not be permitted to go. To avoid this, as some do, it is stacked in a piece of woodland. In both cases the waste straw and the manure remain there for years, until the plough again enters the field, when what remains after being leached and washed away, is carelessly spread around. Thus this large source of manure is either entirely lost, or in a great degree, when a little additional hauling would bring it to the barnyard, where it might be fed and used as stated. In order that we may see the value of straw as a manure, I give the following table of the ash analysis of 10 bushels of grain and 1,200 pounds of straw, the amount usually allowed for the production of that number of bushels of wheat.

This analysis shows how large an amount of silica is in the straw, a mineral element so necessary to making a strong, bright, and healthy stem, that can resist the winds and storms. When stock consumes the straw, silica does not enter into the composition of their bodies, consequently it is passed off with the manure. By saving both straw and manure, all this silica is returned to the fields.  It will be seen that the straw contains about three times the amount of potash, lime, magnesia, and sulphuric acid that the grain does, and that it has a large proportion of phosphoric acid, one of the most essential elements of wheat. These elements of the straw are too valuable to be so lightly regarded by most farmers.

Having thus, I believe, considered all material matters connected with the growth of the wheat plant, my task is accomplished.