Middletown transcript., 1868-01-04
9grifultural department.
To Prevent vycevi i'm Wheat.

The following article is of great inpor-
tance to farmers. We hope that some of
them will give the experiment trial. 1t
appeared first in the Southern CaAiyator.
which is good authority on agricultural
matters. That paper says, through one
of its correspondents:
Let wheat be salted, and weeyiI will
never infest it. l have followed this plan
from 1884 till now, and have never lost
any wheat with weevil after salting it.
80 certain is this plan to save wheat, that
| never sun mine at all. l let it stand in
the tields IN dozens for twelve days, then
thresh, fan and salt away. use half a
pound of salt to bushel of wheat. As it
Is measured into gamers sprinkle the salt
and stir after each measure. If the house
be dry wheat is sure to keep well on this
plan.
Now, all farmers know that wheat d;-
minishes in bulk as it gets older q. 6. the
grain gets less)and that it will not Weld as
much nor as good -four as when fresh aAm
the field. This change is prevented bv
saiting. Ii you examine it eight or ten
days after sailing, it will be found damn.
with dissolved salt on the surface of the
grams but some weeks afterward it will
be found dry, having kept cool all the
time. The salt enters into the grain and
makes the -four sahish, but not enough SO
to interfere with any of its culinary uses.
Let us sum up the advantages of this mode
OF saving wheat:
L. 1t preserves the wheat with more
certainty than summing. $3.50. Ks.
2 The wheat does not lose in volume
or weight by long keeping. ,... .-- 3.
D. 1t makes more and much better flour.
4. 1t costs less labor. 3
D. The wheat is better for seed, because
it is preserved in its perfect state. There
is not salt enough in it to prevent it from
terminating, but there is enough to stimu-
late it to sprout vigorously.
" l suppose that after ali the of labor cost
IN summing, near one-fourth of the all
wheat produced in the valley of the Missis-
slppl is either lost by weevil or badly dam
aged. This is no small item of loss when
the average crop is considered. Were an
farmers to salt their wheat, this enormous
annual loss would be prevented ; and then
no one would ever make bread of wheat
not quite spoiled enough to give to pigs,
and yet too bad for any person to eat. |
have seen wheat saved by sailing after the
weevil were in it.
:" In 1886, for want of house room, INV
wheat was put in hand stacks as it was
hauled up to threshing. When about half
done hauling, it occurred to me that the
weevil might get into it before we shoala
get ready to thresh it therefore saIted
the remaining wheat as it was nut in the
stacks, and it was fortunate it was done
because the weevil ruined all which was
not salted, while those stacks which were
salted remained uninjured. In 1862 there
were four separate parcels of wheat put in
my barn: three of them were salted. and
one was not. All three of the parcels
which were salted kept perfectly sound and
free of wecvil but the one not salted was
ruined by the weevil think Indian corn
might be saved by sailing.
1t is best to unite the two principles here
set forth in saving wheat that is. it should
be kept dry and salted too Because if il
be put up too moist, so much salt would be
required to save it that it would make the
hour too salt for any use, and the vitality
of the grain would be destroyed, so that It
would be unfit for seed.