The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-02-04
LODGING OF WHEAT ON RICH LANDS.
BY GEORGE GEDDEs.

Institute has referred to me, for an an
swer, a letter dated LandisbuFg, Perry
County, Pa, signed James Gilbraith, NJ.
D., from which l extract as follows !:
"Some years back, or III the earlier set
Element of our country, 60 35, and as
high as 40 bushels of wheat have been
produced to the acre of ground; but
now from II to 10, and ut furthest 20 or
%, is the most that can be raised. This
is not owing to want of fertility in the
soil. Where the ground is made good
by manuring, so as to produce good
crop, the wheat will lodge and not fill.
Anything that can be suggested by the
Club on this subject will be gratefully
received by the readers and subscribers
of the Tribune in this section"
Assuming that the Doctor has in all
particulars stated his case correctly, it
certainly is one of great interest. A
limestone soil that once produced large
yields of wheat, under what must be ad-
mitted to be a good rotation of crops,
can no longer be made to produce a fair
average of the grain, though it will pro-
duce largely of straw. Red clover is
plowed under, aud in fact, so far as APP
pears from the letter, everything has
been done to increase the fertility of the
soil by the farmers, that has been sup
posed to be necessary in other places.
Our own farm has been managed very
much in the way indicated in this ae-
count of the Landisburg processes, and
seventy years of cropping has resulted
quite differently so far as the yield of
grain is concerned. An agricultural
chemist would doubtless say that the
Landisburg soils had been exhausted of
some mineral constituent of wheat, that
an analysis would show was now want
ing; and he, perhaps, would suggest
that there was lack of soluble sick.
The falling of the straw before the heads
are flied indicates this. Not being ia
miliar with the geology or mineralogy
of that part of the State OF Pennsylva-
mia, and having no report or other au-
thOrity to refer to, / can only say that l
strongly suspect that this is case where
a good chemist would be useful. If I
owned land there l should, first of all,
have some specimens of soil from the
oldest fields, and from land that had
never raised wheat, analysed and thor
oughly examined by some competent
chemist. We are not informed as to
whether the corn crops are good, nor
the oat crops, nor the grass. If these
crops are as good or better than they
were years ago, and the falling off in
production is confined to wheat, the
man of science should he able to tell us
what is the matter; but ! suspect that
even he would want to visit the locality
when crops were growing, and get ali
the facts bearing on the case, before he
commenced the construction of theories.
think the Club should have sent this
case to their chemist, rather than to a
practical man but, as it has come to me,
viii indicate the policy that appears to
me as promising the best result that can
be reached without the aid of science.
wish the Doctor had told us what
variety of wheat was raised at Landis-
burg. Mediterranean wheat is very
weak in the straw, and on rich land
lodges very badly. 1t is the wheat for
poor land. Stiff-strawed wheat, on the
contrary, is not adapted to poor land,
but is to rich land. Acting on this fact,
/ would try some stiff-strawed variety,
such as Treadwell, or, if l had no fears
of the nudge, the Delhi, which is a
white wheat, later in maturing, but
worth in the market II to Is per cent.
more than the red varieties. Use but
little seed, that the straw may grow
large and strong. Thick wheat neces-
sarily has fine, timber straw. Use two
or three bushels of salt, sown broadcast
on an acre soon after the snow is off IN
the spring. To test the merits of thin
sowing and sailing, try some ground
with the usual amount of seed, and salt
in strips, leaving strips of both thick
and thin seeding unsalted. Mark the
results, and perhaps lesson may be
learned in one years trial that will be
worth something.
InadVising the use of varities of grain
that have stiff straw and thin seeding, /
am but stating the practices adopted
here, as our lands grow more fertile, by
our best farmers, who not only try to
discern the signs of the times, but to
know what their neighbors are doing,
and thus draw their information from
all that passes around them. To such
men the whole country is one great ex-
detrimental farm, carried on for their in
formation