Year: 1879




B. F. johnson, Esq, of Champaign, ILL.,.
writes The Country Gentleman as follows !:
On page 81 current volume, you state the
course of the Miller's Association OF the
ference to urging upon farmers the pro-
priety of sowing more hard wheat than
they now do,and refer to like course ta-
ken by similar association in Wisconsin,
which has gone so far as to object formal
ly to several soft varieties. Perhaps the
members of the bodies are not ready to
admit the fact that farmers raise soft
cause they not only yield more on par
TALLY exhausted lands, but will often
make crop under conditions in which
the hard sorts fail. NJ. Isidore Pierre, a
distinguished French agricultural chem
ist, remarks: 'The interest of general
consumption from the point of view of
rich and substantial food supply, demands
the preference OF the extention of the
cultivation of varieties of wheat strong in
assimilable nitrogenous substances, which
are more glutinous aud more nutritive;
but on the contrary, the interest of the
cultivator and the landed proprietor
seems to demand the preference for va
rieties OF wheat less rich in gluten and
other nitrogenous matters, because these
exhaust the soil less, and the difference
in price Oh the market does not often
compensate for the difference in the cost
of production" If the northwestern
rnillers' associations want hard Wheats
| they must pay farmers the extra cost of
| producing them, or send to those regions
! where the soil eminently favcrs their pro-
| duction and is likely to continue to do so
for the next century.


But this statement may seem to de-
| mand something like an explanation,
which may be made as follows: The
successful production Of wheat whether
soft or hard, requires, so far as the soil
is concerned, three or four essential
hings,among Which are certain amount
of phosphoric acid, and its com bination
of lime and magnesia. Some soils have
them in abundance for the first five or
six crops, and such are the wheat soil of
| the northwest. After that number has
been taken of, the supply begins to get
exhausted and show it in diminished
crops, so that in twenty or twenty-five
years the average yield is reduced from
twenty bushels 10 less than a quarter of
it. This is what has happened in north
ern Illinois, and will doubtless happen
In the now famous spring wheat regions
OF Minnesota and Dakota.


But while the soils above referred to
are not exhausted OF nitrogen to the ex-
tent of causing failure in wheat produc-
tioD, they are of phosphoiic acid and the
lime and magnesia combination; these
mineral substances beng found to lin
tied extent only in them, and these lands,
after having once failed to produce wheat,
cannot be made to yield it again until
after being fertilized or subjected to q
long season of fallow. But if the soils
of the spring wheat region are deficient
in the mineral constituents above refer
red to, those Of the lower winter wheat
region of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana
are rich in them, and 50 rich are they
that In some districts for weeks, and
sometimes months, III the rainy and
winter season, the surface waters are
milky and turbid with these substances
held in suspension. Here hard wheats
have been grown tor fifty years or more,
since the crops of 1876 and 1877 were the
best in quality ever made; but neverthe-
less on one condition, and that is that the
supply of nitrates must be kept up, eth
er by the use of stable manure, or blowing
hay, or straw, or green crops under. I
recollect distinctly something said by
your venerable and lightened CORES.
pondent, Hon. Levi Bartlett of New
Hampshire, in reference to the value of
some Of the salts Of magnesia for the sue
cess OF the wheat crop, and I am con-
vlnced, from what have seen of wheat
growing for the past two or three years,
that the salts do play an essential part in
the production of hard wheat, and a part
out of all proportion in Importance to the
small amount found IN any and all parts
of the mature wheat plant.


In course of last years correspon dence
frequently wrote of the splendid ap-
Pearance and quality of the wheat grown
In EHingham county and that neighbor-
hood, and attributed much of the excel
lence of the grain there produced to the
/ character OF the soil, which gave everv
| evidence OF being extraordinarily rich in
the mineral substances above mentioned
Since that time, and within the last few
months, firm of millers in that county,
becoming aware of the exceptional ex-
cellence of the wheat grown in that
neighborhooo, have sought to manufac-
ture a brand of flour equal in every way
to the raw material; and the result is an
article of such excellence that it EQUALS.
and in some respects excels, the high
priced and fancy brands made in St.
Louis and its neighborhood for the eastern
markets, and sold for 50 and SO barrel
more.


In concluding these paragraphs on the
always important if not Interesting sub
ject of wheat production, should like to
put on record the fact that very g,cat
progress has been made in the manufac-
ture OF bread sold by bakers since a few
yeara-that progress amounting to so
much that one may truly say that good
bread is as common now as ten wears ago
poor bread, or even bad bread, was. This
Improvement is partly due to more skill
full and rational processes of milling.
party to the more careful and conscien-
tious cultivation of better varieties, and
partly and perhaps mostly, to the ex-
traordinary excellence of the bread
furnished to the public by the Vienna