Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1872-10-17
agricultural 9epartment.
From the Rural CarOlinian.
WHEAT, CHEAT AND STURDY.


can be grown on a cotton plantation proftably
for market, there can certainly be no doubt.
but that enough wheat for home consumption
might be economically grown on large ma
jority of the cotton farms of the South. To
broadcast wheat, however, on corn land and
turn it under with twisters or to flush up tie
land with scooters after the wheat is sown,
anticipating from either method a remunera-
tive yield, will surely disappoint the planter.
Strange infatuation! Southern farmers and
planters think all kinds of land should yield
abundant harvests of all kinds of crops, with
the least possible labor, except when planted
in corn or cotton. These two crops will have
the land we'll prepared and highly manured
for them, and demand ceaseless labor Of the
laborer and employer for twelvemonth ;
and, though the history of the past proves
that the first pays nothing and the second Of
ten brings a load of debt, yet, year after year,
they are ploughed and hoed, and coaxed and
petted as if there was no possible method of
earning dime on the plantation except from
the corn crib or gin house.
To subsoil land, and manure it, and harrow
it, and SOW it, and roll it, is too much labor
for small grain, but not half enough for corn,
and yet such attention will often produce a
yield of almost as many bushels of wheat as
corn, and the former always sells for double
as much as the latter in our markets.
Oats, poor, hardy grain, if there is sterile
field on the plantation, there is where they are
sown. And rye is seldom thought worthy of
a spot on the plantation. Barley is more
aristocratic grain. If it is not sown on fer
tile spot it will produce nothing, and hence
those who SOW it treat it more kindly, and for
so doing are always handsomely repaid. Now
this method oftreating the small grain crop at
the South is one cause of its being generally
inferior.
Though having sown wheat for twenty
years I never saw "cheat" nor "sturdy" until
the year 1868. Threshing that year for the
public, received some very fine looking toll
wheat which I sowed, and the next year, early
in the spring, coarse, heavy, green tuft was
seen occasionally in the wheat field that excl
ted my suspicious. 1t grew as rapidly and just
as tall as the wheat, but headed out and ri.
pened a little later. The grains stuck very
close to the stalk and were in alternate sections
on either side of it. The coarseness of this
stalk and its leaves would be distinguishable
to the touch in the dark. This mongrel, |
wastold, was Sturdy"
In 1868 ordered ten bushels of wheat from
New York It was beautiful. Sown in Oc'
tober it covered the ground before January
and, until April, promised we'll. In May, oc'
siopal stalks shot up at least six inches higher
than the wheat, and branched into cone
shaped head, somewhat like spring oats. Ho'
ping had received vauable grass, the seeds
from these stalks were gathered carefully, and
sown in September, 1869. 1t grew well all
the winter and was grazed often by my sheep
Indeed every kind of animal ate it greedily
and seemed to prefer it to aay other green
food in the winter. As it grew to maturity,
however, was assured it was "cheat." I'm
mediately it was ploughed under and l have
never seen it since.
These two experiments were my first intro
duction to these noxious plants, and although
seldom having seen them on my plantation
since, occasionally I see sprig,) am at a
loss to know what they are, genericaly. Are
they sui generis, or are they specimens of de-
generate wheat? If sturdy is degenerate
wheat, what is cheat and, vice versa; or why
does not the land that converts wheat into
either not always convert it into the same
thing?
The impression is general that some kinds
of land will convert any kind of wheat into
cheat. For instance, I heard farmer in this
State say, he had sown wheat consecutively
for four years on the same land, and the last
crop was almost entirely cheat. He had then
taken this mongrel and cultivated it on diff
ferent soil, and in four years restored it to its
original parentage-wheat. This experiment
appears unanswerable, and seems to be every
way conclusive; but some how or other, I am
still of the opinion, that would as soon plant
corn and expect to harvest peas as to SOW
cheat and anticipate wheat crop.
A friend writing from Tuscumbia, Alabama
says: 'on the subject of grazing the too for
ward growth of wheat, is there not danger Of
encouraging cheat? I have no experience
with it myself but some of my neighbors, and
intelligent men, say, they have repeatedly tried
it with the invariable result of ruinous
growth of cheat. In one instance the greer
wheat was moved down, resulting in. a heavy
yield of cheat"
Though annually sowing early barley, fol
spring soiling, and both rye and oats in Sep
tember, for winter nipping for sheep, l have
never sown wheat especially for this purpose
1 have, however, run sheep on too forward
wheat, and have never seen cheat, q presume
it is what is known here as sturdy,) the result
of my sowing, unless I scattered cheat or stur
dy seed. The plantation upon which live
has grown more or less wheat annually since
the last century, and I have yet to see the frs
grain Of cheat or sturdy hybridized upon the
place.
All thesmall grains do we'll sown in Au
gust, September, or October, on cotton land
but my experience is, wheat succeeds less than
either rye oats, or barley. 1t does not seem
to withstand the trampling by the cotton pick
ers as we'll as barley or rye, and that which
seems to injure the wheat appears really tc
benefit oats. Possibly wheat is a more deli
cate and tender plant than either of the others
Land that has been cultivated in some sum-
mer crops, if broken up thoroughly in Septem.
ber or October, and manured with any Of the
commercial fertilizers, or with cotton seed and
acid phosphate compost, at the rate Of ten
dollars worth per acre, and then narrowed
and brushed or rolled till as smooth as floor
will ordinarily produce remunerative wheat
crop. Ifthe crop proves failure, the land is
in fair condition for pea crop, which If drill.
ed in two feet beds as soon as practicable at:
ter harvest, and ploughed and hoed, an acre
will produce green crop worth twenty dol
lars per acre to the land if turned under when
half the peas are ripe; or if sown broadcast,
and narrowed and rolled will produce hay
crop worth as much as the wheat crop and