Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1876-09-22
Improvement of Seed Grain.

For some yet-unaccounted-for reason,
the average. yield of wheat has been
growing less and less for years all over
the country. In the same localities, on
the same soil that once produced an av-
erage of thirty bushels, the yield is now
but fifteen. Has the land degenerated,
run out, or been exhausted of all its life? {?
Have the seasons so changed that their
influence upon the growing crop is de-
structive, or has the seed so far deteri-
GRATED that an average cannot be at
tanned. .-. -r
To say that the land has degenerated
or lost its vitality would condemn the
utility of manures, both homemade and
commercial. Never was there so much
labor bestowed and money spent upon
soil to fertilize it as now. Twenty tons
are now scattered where but one was
used years ago. The most scientifically
prepared composts are now pat on the
soil, and still the averages go down. Has
the climate anything to do with lessen
ing the averages? But little, when
compared with other essentials. / say
"but little" When the winter is char
acterized by long, deep SHOWS the wheat
crop is better. 1t is better, too, when
freezes and thaws do not frequently
come and go, and when the rainfall is
small. Then, repeat it, the season has
much less to do with making a wheat
crop sure and profitable than most peo-
pie are willing to admit.
Has the seed, used and abused as it
now is, anything to do in diminishing the
yieldg Much, very much. contend,
as have done in former articles, that a
good and profitable wheat crop depends
as much as, if not more than, half upon
careful selecting and saving of the seed.
l know it to be fact in this section from
numerous experiments have made with
more than twenty varieties of wheat
upon different soils and with different
fertilizers. A system of carelessness in
selecting and saving seed whea at has char
acterized almost the entire class of wheat
growers for long time This system
would ruin any seed if carried to such
an extent. Crops are cut in the dough
state, before the germ has become ma
tured sufficiently to reproduce even a
healthy stalk; it is threshed without any
reference to the injurious effects of the
heavy, rapid stroke of the thresher upon
the grain; it is put in the garner and
made to sweat .-..
When reason, common sense and the
laws of vegetable physiology are brought
to bear upon such treatment of seed,
who wonders at the decline in averages? =?
who can be astonished that it has run out ?
Wheat for seed should be selected as
carefully and gathered when as ripe as
farmers do their seed corn or florists their
seeds. Corn has not deteriorated, nor
have other seeds and grain. Vegetable
gardeners, florists and seedsmen exercise
the greatest possible care in saving their
seeds. 1t is the only method they can
adopt by which to keep up the stand
ard of their products, improve their seed,
flowers and fruits, and sustain their rep
utatiOn. Why not, then, do the same in
wheatY why not take the best? why not
let it ripen well before cutting9 con-
tend that every farmer should pick by
hand few bushels of dead-ripe heads
every year from his choicest soil, and
should rub the grain out instead of thresh.
ing. 1t will take time and patience, but
by actual experiments ] have made for
six years it will pay-pay we'll, too
Should this system be carried out by all
the former average could be easily at
tanned, and the many enemies and aoci-
dents that attack wheat would be in a
great measure avoided.--A. II. Blunt,
In the Country Gentleman.