WHEAT

( Triticum, L.; Tri and ria Digynia, L., Grammas, Ju . Inflorescence spiked. Glume two-valved, many flowered, sliurter than the spikelet; the valves nearly equal, beardle , or with one beard enclosing the florets. Pale;e two, one of them bearded from the end. Seed enclosed in the pales, rarely otherwise.) Wheat is by tar the most important and most extensively cultivated species of bread-corn raised in England. It is sown after fallow, turnips, cabbages, potatoes, beans, . In light soils it follows clover and the cultivated gra es; but it never, at least in the best farmed districts, follows any other white crop. Wheat may be raised on all sorts of soils; but those of a clayey nature are the most suitable. So peculiarly, indeed, is wheat adapted to heavy still' lands, thai they arc usually termed "wheat soils." The lighter the soil, the le it is suited to this species of grain; aivl it is an error in practice to force the cultivation of wheat on soils, and under circumstances, better suited to the production of other grain. In this country it does not admit of being raised at a great elevation. As it is a crop on which the farmer mainly depends, the preparation for it, in whatever rotation it comes, should be an object of great care and attention. If it he intended to sow wheat after fallow, the land is repeatedly ploughed, harrowed, and well manured: if after clover, only one ploughing is given, and seldom more after beans; where tares have been previously sown, they are got off the land in sufficient time to plough it more than once; when wheat follows turnips or cabbages, it must, unle they be stored or eaten, be sown in the spring months. The kinds of wheat grown in England seem mostly all to be varieties of two species — the Triticum hybirnum, or winter wheat, and the Triticum turgidum, or turgid wheat. The culture of the latter is mostly confined to clays; the cone or bearded wheat being the most esteemed of its varieties: it enjoys this pre-eminence, not because it yields the finest flour, but because it is comparatively productive, und not subject to disease on wet soils. The varieties of wheat are perpetually changing, in const••- ice ' r "arii;,"is of culti re, climate, and soil. Those m, -i:o-^ Winter wheat is seldom sown in any part of England before the beginning or middle of September, or later than the end of November. Spring wheat is generally sown between the middle of March and the middle of April. The seed is Invariably pickled or steeped: a proce intended to prevent smut. The quantity of seed allowed to an acre, when sown broad-cast, usually varies from 2J to 3, and even 4 Winchester bushels. The drill husbandry, M applied to wheat, is practised to a considerable extent in many parts of England; and in some places i; is not (infrequently planted with the dibble; but by far the greater portion is sown broad-cast. While growing, but little attention or labour is bestowed upon it. When drilled, it is generally lined; and when sown broadcast,it.Is sometimes hand-weeded, nnd occasionally, though rarely, harrowed and rolled in the spring. But these operations are generally, perhaps, prosecuted as much in the View of covering the clover and un seeds that are then frequently sown in the wheat fields, as of improving the wheat crop. Wheat harvest generally commences, in the south of England, about the 25th of July, or the beginning of Au- '.oi-:; in the midland counties it is about ten days, nnd in the northern counties from a fortnight to three weeks later. There is a striking difference in the harvest field operations, with respect to this as well as other kinds of grain, between the north and south of England; in the former, during harvest, the corn-field exhibits a large number of reapers, per haps 50, 00, or even 100, all working together, and presenting! an interesting and animating spectacle. In the south of England, on the other hand, and over the greater part of {he midland counties, wheat is reaped by small sets of individuals, who contract to cut a field or a certain number of acres; so that, in general, the field merely exhibits one or two men, with, perhaps, their wives, working in different parts of it. Wheat is seldom or never cut down with the scythe, but is either reaped with the common sickle, or, as is the practice in some of the counties near the metropolis, as well as in some1334of the south western counties, it is bagged, that [s. 1348]