In heavy soils nothing is more detrimental than excess of moisture. Even in well-drained fields the water will stand too long in the furrows if there is not a proper outlet for it. The furrows should be well cleared out with the spade as soon as the seed is sown, drilled, or dibbled, the earth being thrown evenly over the surface of the stitches, and not left in an unsightly ridge, which crumbles down with the furrow at the first frost. In proper places and at regular distances deeper water furrows should be dug out after the plough has ploughed a deep furrow in the intended line ; and this should then be finished as is said above : so that if a heavy fall of rain should come suddenly, the water would have a regular course and outlet into the ditches which lie in the lowest part of the land, without soaking into the soil, which is already too retentive of moisture. It is chiefly in spring and when snow melts that there should be a daily inspection of the wheat field. An experienced eye going along the bottom of the ridges of a large field will discover at once whether there is any stoppage of the water ; and by means of a spade or shovel it will be remedied with little trouble. When the surface binds, as it does in some soils, and prevents the access of air to the roots, the land is harrowed or hoed, and in a few days the effect will be apparent.
It is a very common notion that good wheat and bean land is not well adapted to the growth of roots, especially of such as are usually fed off the land by sheep, because the treading of animals is injurious in winter and spring, when these crops are usually wanted ; and if they are carted off, the wheels and the horses make such impressions as are equally detrimental or more so. But all roots, even the white turnip, will grow luxuriantly on heavy soils well prepared and manured; and they may be so managed as to be taken off before the winter. The land being ploughed immediately on the removal of the roots, will be well prepared for wheat, or, when mellowed by the winter's frost, may be sown in spring with beans, barley, or oats. The manure will be incorporated with the soil, even if it has been put on in a very fresh state for the meta, which can only be recommended on very compact soils. If the root crops are well cleaned, fallows may be avoided, or at least recur very seldom, and then only when root weeds have accu mulated from neglect.
When the wheat has blossomed, and the grain in the ear is fully formed, it should be watched, and as soon as the seed feels of the con sistence of tough dough, and the straw is dry and yellow below the ear, it should be reaped. The skin of the grain will be thinner, and its substance will harden readily by mere drying, while the straw is better fodder for the cattle. It is found by experience that the increase of flour by adopting this method is very considerable. The operation of reaping is now best done by the reaping machine.
The choosing of wheat for seed is a matter of great importance. Some farmers like to change their seed often; • others sow the pro duce of their own land continually, and both seem persuaded that their method is the best. The fact is, that it is not always the finest wheat which makes the best seed; but it depends on the nature of the land on which it grew. Some soils are renowned far and wide for producing good seed, and it is well known that this seed degenerates in other soils, so that the original soil is resorted to for fresh seed.
While the wheat is growing it is exposed to various accidents, which it is often difficult to foresee, and more difficult to guard against. The
smut and burnt-ear are diseases which may be generally prevented by a proper preparation of the seed before it is sown. Many corrosive substances have been recommended to steep the seed in, such as blue vitriol, one pound to a quarter of a grain, dissolved in water enough to wet every seed. It seems, however, that washing the seed well with plain water, or with salt and water, and afterwards drying it with quick lime, sufficiently destroys the germ of the smut to prevent its propa gation. The most common steep is water in which so much salt has been dissolved as will enable it to float an egg. In this the seed may be left for twelve hours or more, and then spread on a floor and mixed with as much quicklime as will absorb the moisture, and allow it to be sown or drilled, without the grains adhering to one another.
In the second volume of the Journal of the Royal Society of Agri culture of England,' Part L, is a valuable paper, by the Rev. T. S. Ilenslow, on the diseases of wheat. He describes the different fungi which produce the various diseases of pepper-brand, dust-brand, rust, and mildew. The ergot in wheat is an excrescence from the ear, like a small horn, into which the seed is transformed. It has a poisonous quality and a medicinal one. The cause of this monstrosity in the seed is not fully known. It is supposed to be caused by the puncture of some insect, introducing a virus which has entirely altered the functions of the germ, and made it produce this ergot, instead of a healthy seed. Another C1iI08110 of the seed is called ear-cockles, and is caused by extremely minute insects like eels, which fill the skin of the seeds, instead of dour. This inaect, which is called Vibrio tritici, is described by Mr. Bauer in the 'Philosophical Transactions' for 1823. This disease is not so common as the smut and the pepper-brand. It is probable, according to Mr. Ilenalow, that the animalcula may be killed by exposing the grain to a certain heat, so as not to destroy its power of vegetation, but sufficient to kill the vibrio. The wheats midge (Cecidomyia !ratio) is another external enemy, which does more harm to the crop than is generally known. It deposits its eggs at the root of the germ in the ear, and prevents the filling of the graiu, the maggot living on the nutritive juices which should produce the farina. The Hessian fly, which caused such depredations in America and Canada at one time, Is a different species of the same fly. This deposits its ens in the straw near the root, and this destroys the whole plant. We must refer the reader for further particulars to the paper above mentioned.
Great attention has been lately paid to the introduction of the best and most prolific varieties of wheat, and by merely observing what cars appear much superior to others in a field of ripe wheat, and collecting these to be sown separately in a garden or portion of a field, the variety, which may have been produced by some fortuitous impregna tion, or some peculiarity in the spot where It grew, is perpetuated. By carefully selecting the seed which is beat adapted to the soil, by a more careful and garden-like cultivation, and by adding those manures which are found most adapted to favour its perfect vegetation, crops of wheat have been raised, which, at one time, would have been thought marvellous ; and the average produce of this important grain has been increased on all soils.