The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-05-31
THE FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
The Yield of Wheat.

The wheat crop as the chief food grain OF
the world, ought certainly to be grown with
profit. If this staple crop is by universal con-
sent admitted to be an Improbable one,
there must necessarily be something wrong
in its management. No other crop can take
its place under our present system of farming
for it is in the vast majority of cases made the
vehicle for bringing in grass aud clover, and
its place 10 the usual rotation cannot well be
filled by any substitute. But there is uni
versal complaint that there is 10 profit in
growing wheat. This is very generally true
but it does not follow that the blame belongs
to the wheat, for with some farmers wheat is
by far the best money crop they raise. But
these farmers raise far more than the low av-
erage of II or Is bushels per acre.
Itmay be taken as a general rule that
yield of less than 25 bushels of wheat per
acre is grown at loss, at least in those To-
calities where it is necessary 10 use manure
to produce this grain. Where the "vrgin
soil' is still unexhausted, and manure is left
to rot idly in the yards, or to be washed into
the streams, there may still be some little
profit in 20 bushels per acre. But where 10
to 20 loads of manure per acre lis used every
four years, and lime, superphosphate, or 9TH
er fertilizers are applied periodically, in adj
dition; crop of even twenty-five bushels is
hardly profitable. Still larger yield than
this is the exception rather than the rule up
on well cultivated farms.
An elaborate effort has been made recently
by Mr.. Kippart, the Secretary of the Board
of Agriculture of Ohio, to ascertain how fire.
quently 40 bushels of wheat per acre has
been grown by farmers in that State. A cir
cular was issued to the Secretaries of the
County Agricultural Societies requesting the
names of those farmers who had within their
knowledge grown 40 bushels of wheat or over
per acre. From Champaign County five
names were reported, three Of these farmers
had grown 40, one 45, and one 81 bushels per
acre. In Hardin County, two names were
obtained. Mercer County furnished six
names; Morgan County. one; Putnam Coun-
ty, three; and Sandusky County, three
names, one of which was that OF a farmer
who raised 81 bushels per acre.
With these few exceptions, the yields re-
ported were few of 80 bushels or more,
many of 25 bushels, and in many cases the
latter yield was mentioned as an extraord-
nary crop. In some cases the yield was re-
ported as being little more than the quantity
of seed that had been sown. 1t is largely the
custom in Ohio to SOW the wheat upon the
corn stubble, simply narrowing in the seed or
covering it with one blowing or cultivating
Where this is done, profitable yield cannot
be looked for, even upon the rich bottoms of
that generally fertile State. The few large
crops reported are without doubt raised in
different manner from this, although we have
no means of knowing the methods by which
they were grown.
1t is the same in other States. Forty years
ago, forty bushels of wheat per acre was very
common in Western New York and Ohio,
where now third of that quantity is an or
cinary crop, and half of it good one. 1t is
doubtful If any other State in the whole coun-
try could make better showing than Ohio,
although the average yield of wheat is slowly
increasing in the older States. 1t is on the
way to minimum in the latest settled of the
Western States, California included, and there
will be some years yet before it will reach
turning point.
The incentive to better management Of
the wheat crop is a powerful one. 1t is the
necessity for the means of living in comfort.
A farmer who raises - bushels of wheat per
acre can hardly be said to live; he exists, but
cannot live in comfort upon such an income,
nor can he make life upon his farm desirable
TO his children. Necessity must force him to
improve his mode of culture, and to prepare
the ground very much better than he has
done heretofore.
low price for wheat relieves the Ameri-
can farmer from much foreign competition,
and it is hardly probable that we shall see the
price Of wheat advance much above the pres
ent rates, unless as a consequence of light
yield. But doubled yield is equal TO doub-
led price, and we can safely produce such
crop, inasmuch, as with the high rents paid
by English farmers, and the greater profit in
grazing, wheat growing in that country,
which is our best customer for wheat, is year.
ly decreasing in extent. To produce this
doubled crop is not impossible; the fact
that some farmers do it, proves that others
may do it also.-Americdn Agriculturdlist.