The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-08-18
From the Rural caroziniian for August.
The Small Grains. :.

From the Ruraz carozinian for August.
The Small Grains.
Every Southern planter should determine to
SOW remunerative small grain crop this fall,
and he who does not do so will lose hand
some per centage upon his plantation invest
ment. Every abig CROP" however, is not
paving crop. To SOW valuable and priced small
grain on roughly prepared land is bad econo-
INV. simply because the increased yield always
repays for thorough preparation. / am aware
It is futile to advise planters to SOW smaller
area, and increase by thorough culture the yield
per acre and, possibly, they are wise in not at
this time listening to such advice, for where
Land is cheap, and laborers both scarce and in
efficient. and trained too to performing their
work in helter-skelter manner, it may be ex-
travagant to attempt scientific farming on a
large SCALE Labor, scientifically directed, will
at certain cost produce thirty bushels Of wheat
per acre; with perhaps less cost, and certainly
with less trouble to the planter, an ordinary
field hand, after the old style, will sow and
reap from three acres about the same number
of bushels. Hence the planter who sows, sur
rounded by generalization, is apt to SOW for
the present, and adopt that system which taxes
least heavily both his patience and his pocket.
He who looks to the future, expects to improve
his land, and determines to transmit to his
heirs an inheritance of increasing value, will
pursue different policy, and while he curtails
his area will increase his yield.
To accomplish this, the land to be sown in
small grain must be as thoroughly prepared as
if for cultivated crop. Deep turning of the
soil should be avoided, and deep breaking be
the end desired. An ordinary shovel followed
in the same furrow by two-horse, or even one
horse Brinly, Utley, or Murfee subsoil, will re-
pay as well in small grain as in cotton or corn.
If stubble or fallow land is to be re-seeded in
SMALL grain it should this month be turned
over" the subsoiling may be done at the same
time or postponed until sowing time. This
subsoiling, if properly done, prevents winter
drowning as well as suffering from drought in
the spring. In plowing under weeds, if heavy
chain be attached to the two ends of the double
tree, and allowed to drag back just to the point
of the plow, the work will be very complete
Small grain should never be manured with
stable, cow-house or compost manure, simply
because they all contain stray grains which will
surely germinate and mix tho crop. Land that
was manured from the stalls of stock fed on
eats, and sown in wheat, will produce mixed
crop of oats and wheat. Cotton seed sown
broadcast, fifty bushels per acre, and plowed in
with the grain, is specific manure for wheat.
Commercial fertilizers pay we'll on any kind OF
SIuall gram, Ouc-udil SuOuiu UC ooWh VA eh0
grain in January or February.
Many planters wishing to ''rest' field SOW
it in small grain, plowing across the cotton and
corn beds, and think the stubble will prevent
washing. This is mistake. If a field be cul-
tiTated in corn or cotton horizontally, to rest it
the land when sown should be plowed as the
run, otherwise the washing will be more In
furious than if the beds had been left and no
small grain sown. Horizontal furrows, fifteen
inches apart, heavily manured and drilled
thickly in small grain on hill-sides, will so
completely prevent washing, both while grow
ing and when in stubble, that the entire hill
side may be covered by the following fall with
innumerable little terraces, each fifteen inches
wide.
propose giving my experience since the war
with small grain, Expressed neither botanically
nor scientifically aud will begin with
On as many kinds of soil have experiment
ted with five kinds of wheat. Stiff red land
invariably produced the best crop and heaviest
wheat introduced from Virginia, has been the
most productive. 1t has strong, large stalk,
slightly blue, resembling the old blue stem or
Mogul Wheat. Flour from this wheat cannot
be surpassed It is neither late nor early
wheat and seldom suffers from rust.
For two years have sown a small, plump
white wheat, originally from the Patent Office,
which resembled in stalk, head and grain, the
white Virginia, but natures later Three acres
pf land, that has been in cultivation since 1900,
produced of this wheat this season forty-siX
bushels.
Last season I sowed two bushels Of Boughton
Wheat, that produced well, but took the rust
IN spots and matured very late This is de-
cided objection to any grain, for they should all
gipen so as to be harvested after "chopping out"
cotton, and before "laying by corn. These
three varieties of white wheat seem this year
to have become Redeemed in appearance, per-
haps from the unusually dry spring; or, per-
heps climatic influence has this natEral fen
dency
In 1866, I received from upper New York
ten bushels of beautiful white wheat, sowed it
on good wheat land highly manured and well
prepared. Yield, about half crop. The next
year only FIVE acres were sown on land similar
ly prepared; yield, almost nothing. In 1868,
an acre was sown, and not one in twenty seed
germinated, and not bushel matured. This
experiment suggests its own inference
For two years / have sown large, heavy,
dark red. uninviting-looking bearded wheat.
originally from the Valley of Virginia, that
Yields we'll, weighs heavily and produces dull
gummy four by no means first quality. This
wheat grows tall, natures its stalk many days
before its head, and looks when ripe as if it
were badly injured by rust. Though neither
rnst nor excessive vet or dry weather seem ever
to affect it.
The most satisfactory wheat have ever sown
is small, round, plump red grain, known as
the Fuller Wheat in this section, because great
ly improved by neighbor of that name. 1t is
the Clarke or Alabama spring wheat, and ma
furo | bor "
10th of May. For ten years it has never failed
to make a good crop, and yields as good flour,
and as much of it, as any wheat T have sown.
By the middle of July, all wheat should be
threshed and thoroughly summed while hot it
should be sprinkled with salt. and put in close