See TRITICUM, BOTANY Index; and for the culture of wheat, see AGRICULTURE Index.

The three principal kinds of bad wheat are, the blighted, the smutty, and the worm-eaten. Blighted wheat is that of which the stalk is a little twisted and rickety, the blade being of a bluish green and curled up, the grain also is green and tubercled: smutty wheat appears as if great part of the ear had been burnt, some small parts only being free, and, in particular, the stem that rises in the centre of the ear, round which the grain is ranged: worm-eaten or rotten wheat is corrupted without losing much of its natural form, or external appearance; the husk is filled with a greasy black powder, that is insufferably fetid. It appeared, from the experiments of M. Tillet, that there was a kind of infectious quality in all those kinds of wheat: so that if sound wheat was sprinkled with the flour of smutty or rotten wheat, the crop produced would be rotten or smutty. It appeared also, that among the grain which was produced from ground manured with the straw of distempered wheat, there was a much greater proportion of distempered wheat than in that produced from ground manured with the straw of good wheat; the great secret then was to destroy the principle of this contagion in the wheat that was put into the ground; and M. Tillet found, as the result of a great number of experiments, that if the grain, before it is sowed, be well moistened with a solution of sea-salt, or nitre, in common water, none of the ensuing crop will be smutty, or otherwise defective, either in kind or quality; not only supposing the grain that is sowed to be sound, and the soil to be good, but even supposing the grain to be strewed with the flour of smutty wheat, and the ground manured with bad straw.

The following receipt for preventing smutty wheat was published in 1769 by order of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts: they received it from Mr John Reynolds of Adisham in Kent.

A tub is to be procured that has a hole at bottom, in which a staff and tap hose is to be fixed over a whisp of straw, to prevent any small pieces of lime passing (as in the brewing way); this done, we put 70 gallons of water, then a corn bushel heap-full of stone-lime, unslaked, stirring it well till the whole is dissolved or mixed, letting it stand about 32 hours, and then run it off into another tub as clear as we can (as practised in beer): this generally produces a hogshead of good strong lime-water; then add three pecks of salt, 42 pounds, which, with a little stirring, will soon dissolve; thus we have a proper pickle for the purpose of brining and liming our seed-wheat without any manner of obstacle, which is more than can be said in doing it the common way, and greatly facilitates the drilling.

Herein we steep the wheat in a broad-bottomed basket of about 24 inches in diameter, and 20 inches deep (for large sowing, made on purpose), running in the grain gradually in small quantities from 10 to 12 gallons up to 16 gallons, stirring the same. What floats, we skim off with a strainer, and is not to be sown: then draw up the basket to drain over the pickle, for a few minutes; all which may be performed within half an hour, sufficiently pickled; and so proceed as before. This done, the wheat will be fit for sowing in 24 hours, if required; but if designed for drilling, two hours pickled will be found best; and if prepared four or five days before-hand, in either case it makes no difference at all; but should the seed be clammy, and stick to the notches in the drill-box, more lime must be added to the lime-water: here the master must use his discretion, as the case requires; for some lime has much more drying or astringent qualities in it than others. If sea water can be obtained conveniently, much less salt will suffice, but some will be found necessary even then, otherwise the light grains will not float, a thing of more consequence than is generally imagined, and it ought to be skimmed off and thrown aside for poultry, &c.