The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1872-09-14
M'tIhe Earta+
HINTS ABOUT WHEAT.

HINES AbUUI WHEAT
1t is mistake to suppose that wheat is
not paying crop. Very often it is not
profitably grown, but it is looked upon as
necessary evil, hardly to be avoided, for
there is no other crop to be substituted for
it in the rotation. Yet wheat is absolutely
necessary for us, and it would be strange
if a crop which the world can not do with
out could not be grown anywhere and
everywhere. The competition with the
easily cultivated and productive new lands
at the extreme West need not necessarily
be overwhelming to the more eastern cult
vator, who on his side has an advantage in
nearness to market, and cheaper tools and
implements, and less waste and cost of
harvesting. But the trouble lies in the
small yield with which the Eastern farm
ers are contented, consequent on the care
less and insufficient methods of preparing
for and sowing the crop. Very rarely is
the oat-stubble, which the wheat crop gen.
orally follows, plowed more than once, and
very often the corn stubble prepared in the
most hurried manner by simple harrow
ing is made to bear this crop, which is
more than all others dependent for success
on a well-prepared seed-bed. The conse-
quence is, that the young wheat is smoth-
cred by the more vigorous oats which
spring up thickly on the newly plowed
ground, and thus weakened is unable to
stand the first heavy frost of the fall or
winter; and is killed out. So on the har
rowed corn stubble there is no depth of
root to sustain the plant in the hard beaten
soil, and it is in a worse condition in this
case even than on the plowed oat-stubble.
At present there is not sufficient vigor in
the soil to enable the plant to make head
against the difficulties it has to contend
with, and it succumbs, and the crop either
fails completely or is very Improbable in
its results, We must work on differ
ent system. Old things have passed away, |
and if this crop is to succeed a new system |
must be adopted. The wheat crop must |
be the pivot on which our farming must |
hinge both in the East and West. The
W est. DIS VIC uSctl W uuueTSIdHu Ilo tSi III
few years ago, is now the East, and is
in exactly the same circumstances as to
condition of soil and needs Of cultivation
as that part of the country we used to call
the East. 'iThorns and thistles" have
taken possession of the soil, and the ''vir-
tue has gone out of it " by which it used
to grow crops by merely scratching the sur
face. No fair wheat crop can now be got
by merely narrowing a rn-stubble, or
by once blowing an cat stubble; nor can
we lay our fields down to grass with a
poorly grown wheat crop and hope to have
good catch or good crop of clover or
grass, Grass is often called our "pivotal
CROP" that upon which the whole rotation
depends; but wheat is the precursor Of !
grass, and as it succeeds Or fails, SO will
our clover or grass flourish or fail. Then
1t will no longer do to hurry it into the ;
ground as we have done. a difference of :
alone, and this is sufficient to make crop
profitable or otherwise. Two plowings $
at least should be given, and unless very {
fair allowance Of fairly good manure can i
be afforded, some of the purchasable ma .
nures should be applied, and those rich in |
nitrogen or ammonia are preferable to the G
or at least have shown them y
selves to be more effectual as fall applica- =
ton. Then, again, there is much to the
sowing. 1t is plain as the rapidly accu- t.
result of experience of late, as II
the attention of farmers has been more
closely drawn to this matter, that broad c
cast sowing must be abandoned as no longer f
profitable. 1t is too costly a method G.
Especially has the late hard winter shown "
his. Drill-sown wheat has escaped the a,
,vil effects of drouth, frost, and excess of G
vet, while broadcast-sown has been seen y
lead and cast upon the surface, with its ~ ~
'oots all drawn from the soil, and no re- ii
ource left to the farmer in the spring but W
o replant his bare fields with other crops "a
The difference here in the yield of the =;
rop will be from five bushels per acre to ne
he whole crop lost, so that, should farm &C
rs generally adopt this and the previously he
mentioned plans, it is probably safe to say w
hat the yield of wheat would be doubled, 60
ertainly, we have often seen, in fact we at
ave grown, crops of wheat of twenty. five
r thirty bushels per acre, which have been
arefully put into the ground, which we
re satisfied would not have yielded
ushels had the old-fashioned syste. zen
Ointed ont baeD folIoued
oou ou' oeen loiio"eo. III here
ase, at least expenses r tho one
reat profit was m" ere, n.de If NO
'op followed: ne. and rood b,v
ould have tho 9th .hor.
ueen serious loss both on the |
and hay crop. F. lrther, in selecting
ed, it will pay to exe'-cise care and judg-
ment. None but the 'plumpest grain should
he chosen. The VII eat should be cleaned
two or three times, and our experience has
been that it will pay to steep the seed IN
solution of copperas, which destroys smut,
and helps to separate the light grains from
those which are fit for seed. A crop sown
in good season is to be preferred, but 1T is
far better to delay week to complete the
preparation, and get the soil into the best
condition, than to hurry over it and make
more haste but less speed in the end
american Agriculturi5.
To MAKE CIDER-Pick all the apples,
;ot;n1 those not sound wash them clean,