The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1859-06-30
The Wheat Crop--Errors Of Agri-
Cuituriatg.


Culturiatgs
In the present excited state Of wheat
growers, dealers, and consumers, we
were very glad to have an opportunity,
for few moments, to converse with Mr..
). II. Klippart, the intelligent aud tire
less Secretary of the State Board of Ag-
riculture, knowing full we'll that no man,
from the position he occupies, can form
a more correct judgment upon tho vozed
subject of the Ohio wheat crop than he
Mr. KlippNrt has been over the most
of the wheat belt of the State, through
Guernsey, Licking, Knox, Fairfield
Delaware, Richland, Crawford, and Ash
land counties He has examined wheat
fields, personally, wherever he has been,
conversed with farmers, made the sub
ject his study, and concludes that there
will be three -fOurths what there would
have been harvested under any circum-
stances.
In his poregrinations, Mr.. X. has had
ia view the cleaning of information re-
lative to the wheat crop, as connected
with the frost, for the purpose of pub
lication in his new work upon wheat
a work every farmer and man of intel
ligeuce should possess.
There have been many capital blum
dors made by those who do not under
stand the process Of wheat growing, and
many fields have been pronounced ru-
ined that were not so. The Monday
after the frost was a day Of clouds, and
sunshine, alternately. Tuesday was
bright, clear day. On that day much
wheat presented the appearance of being
shrunken, but has since recupcrated
and filled up from the base or bottom
Of the berry. Wheat does not form a
perfect kernel on the start--as does the
fruit of the apple, cherry, peach, &C.,
&c.-and then swell out and enlarge,
but the berry Of the wheat, beginning
at its base, builds up-if we may use
the oxpression-from the foundation to
the top. In very many fields the frost
affected the partially formed berry and
gave it a shrunken, collapsed appear
ance, so that casual observers pronOuno-
ed it ruined. Yet so long as the base
of the kernel presented a minute green
spot in which is stored-as the fountain
head-the juices of the wheat, the grain
was safe, and few days demonstrated
the fact that this green spot at the base
furnished a recuperative force that, be-
ginning at the fountain head, infused
new life into the grain, initiating the
kernel-if you please-as you would a
balloon, only distending the base iu-
stead of the apex, first
Where the bearded and smooth wheat
have been sOwn prOmiscuously, the kill
ed of the two kinds are as seven of the
bearded to five Of tho smooth-tho
bearded thus being proved to be the
most tender. Wheat roots have from
FIVE to seventeen tillers or stalks issuing
from each kernel of wheat sowed. In
many fields examined it was found that
in a cluster Of nine tillers, seven were
frozen and two were sound. Now that
on its face, looks discouraging, but fur
thcr investigation showed that the two
live stalks had, each, twenty kernels,
showing, even under these circumstan-
Ces, a yield Of forty fold. Where there
were FIVE stalks, three we're frozen and
two were fresh; the two yielding each
twenty four grains-fOrty- eight fold.
There are errors relative to tho first
joint theory, it being supposed that the
discoloration of the stalk near the first
Joint is the effect of the frost That is
an error, for out Of fOrty-seven heads
which we're pulled and found to be en-
tirely frozen, forty three were sound at
the first joint. When the stalk shows
whitish above the first joint, shading
down TO a brown appearance, insert the
knife, aud an insect will be discovered.
Farmers are apt, upon the happening Of
such a frost, to attribute all unusual ap-
pearances to the action Of the frost.
The wheat that was in the bloom was
spoiled But little wheat, comparative
ly, was in bloom, as that stage only
lasts about two days. In Lawrenco
county, bread was eaten on the 1st Of
june from new wheat, and the wheat in
Southern Ohio, when the frost came,
was in a state in which il is usually cut
by the Genosee farmers.
Near Ashland, Mr.. Klippart saw a
farmer turning his cattle into his wheat
field, and told him he was too fast. The
farmer, however, pronounced the wheat
ruined, and no arguments would con-
vince him to the contrary. Two days
after the same farmer was rushing over
the same field TO get his cattle out, hav-
ing discovered that his crop was not ru.
lined -rClevsland Wor8ld .Tune 1Rtb