For the American Agriculturist.
HINTS ON THE CULTIVATION OF WHEAT.
Buffalo, October 25th, 1843.
There are four conditions that modify the value of a wheat crop. One may not only be larger in measure than another, but heavier for the same measure; yielding more flour from a given weight; and lastly, affording a greater proportion of gluten from the same quantity of flour. It is necessary for the farmer to have each of these considerations in view, if he would attain the utmost success in the cultivation of this invaluable grain. My object, in this brief article, will be, to afford some helps to the agriculturist in increasing the ultimate value of his crop. As a starting point, it will, perhaps, be most instructive to inquire, what are the constituent elements of wheat?
Sprengel has analyzed both grain and straw, and the following is the result:—1000 lbs. of wheat afford 11·77 lbs. and of wheat straw, 35·18 lbs. of ash, consisting of
| Grain of wheat. | Straw of wheat. | |
| lbs. | lbs. | |
| Potash | 2·25 | 0·20 |
| Soda | 2·40 | ·29 |
| Lime | ·96 | 2·40 |
| Magnesia | ·90 | ·32 |
| Alumina with a trace of iron | ·26 | ·90 |
| Silica | 4·00 | 28·70 |
| Sulphuric acid | ·50 | ·37 |
| Phosphoric acid | ·40 | 1·70 |
| Chlorine | ·10 | 0·30 |
| —— | —— | |
| 11·77 | 35·18 |
This analysis shows an amount of ash far below the average. Davy found 15·5 lbs. of ash in 100 lbs. of ripe wheat straw; and Johnstone, in one variety, grown on a soil abounding in limestone, 16·5 per cent. of ash.
Thus it will be seen, according to the above analysis of Sprengel, that of the total of grain, less than 1½ per cent., and of straw, rather more than 3½ per cent. is earthy or inorganic matter; while all the remainder is composed of the organic materials, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, of which carbon alone constitutes about one half. All these constituents are absolutely essential to the perfection of the crop. In the natural condition of a fertile soil when first reclaimed, these materials are usually found in sufficient abundance to produce wheat. Such was the condition of nearly all the land in New England, and the eastern portion of our own state; but a few years of careless, unscientific cropping, has exhausted one or more of those constituents which may have existed in an available form; and much of it, after a very few of the first years of its cultivation, has been of little or no value for wheat, under the system of tillage there adopted. It has been asserted by Dr. Dana, that in a soil purely granitic (and much of the land in that region partakes of this character), there is potash enough for successive crops of wheat for 3,000 years, and lime enough to last more than twice that period. But the result is the same for the growing vegetation, whether the materials do not exist at all, or are locked up beyond the reach of it. It is absolutely certain, if wheat will not grow with care and industry, and all the usual appliances of good husbandry, where it once nourished successfully, there is one or more ingredients wanted, in such a condition, that the plants can appropriate them to their own nourishment. And first of the inorganic matters.
The proportion of straw will vary from 2 to 3½ times the weight of the grain. Suppose the quantity taken off the land be estimated at 2½ times the weight of the grain. In a series of crops averaging 20 bushels of wheat per acre, for 30 years, we shall have as the result 36,000 lbs. of grain, and 90,000 lbs. of straw carried off the soil, charged with all the materials above enumerated, and probably sufficient to reduce the land to a very small capacity for production.