Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-01-03
MISTAKES IN WEEAT CULTURE AND
HARVESTING IN CALIFORNIA.

The cultivation Of wheat has formed one
of the principal employments of man since
the remotest periods of antiquity. Ancient
history, both sacred and profane, give ac-
counts of the manner in which wheat was
sown, cultivated, harvested and prepared for
food since the first historical periods of the
world. AS nations have arisen and advanced
to civilization and power wheat culture has
increased, and wheat has become more and
more the principal article of food. The Chi
nese and Japanese are the only important ex-
ceptions to this general rule. Rice has been
great nations of the earth, and the check in
the advancement of their civilization is at
tributable, it is believed by many, mainly to
the inferiority of rice to wheat as food for
man. The modes of sowing, cultivating and
harvesting wheat have changed materially
since the Romans plowed the ground with a
crooked stick, brushed the seed in with
the top of a tree, and gathered the
golden grain with hook or hand
sickle, but the principle changes
in these plans of working have taken place
within the last half century. The United
States has within that time become the great
est wheat-growing country in the Norld, and
within the last quarter of a century, or since
1850, the product of California has increased
from $4,000 to 10000, 900 bushels. The old
modes of cultivationcould never have brought
about such product. Nothing but the
facilities of the gang pillow to turn up the
soil, the seed, sower to SOW the seed, the i'm
mense harrows in use in this State to cover
it, coul& render it possible to put in such a
crop as was put in in 1878, and had not
the improved facilities for harvesting and
thrashing it been invented and brought into
use it would have been impossible to have Sc
cured the crops that have been produced in
this State for the past few years. We have
been rushing into the wheat business so rap
idly, and it has been>as a rule, 80 profit
able to individuals, an u such great imme-
diate financial gain to.'the people as a
whole, that we have not taken time to
inquire whether we have not beer making
many mistakes as individuals and as State.
Twenty years ago the average yield of wheat in
California was forty bushels per acre, while to-
day the average yield is hardly twenty. One
of the main causes of this shrinkage, no
doubt, is the liberalization of the soil. We
have been drawing from the soil cultivated in
wheat the properties required to produce
L., / -
anything to restore these properties. Under
these circumstances, is it any wonder that
our wheat yield has decreased per acre? But
this decrease in bulk or weight is not the
wheat culture. Twenty years ago our wheat
was counted the best wheat sold in the Liver
pool market, and brought the highest price
Now it ranks second or third in quality, and
per cent in yield per acre we have also lost in
quality about % per cent. Now it is quite
common to attribute these losses to the de-
terioration in our soil by too constant crop
ping. While this may be, and probably is,
the principal cause, it is by no means the
only one. We have allowed our land to be-
come foul with weeds and have pot been
careful enough in cleaning our wheat before
putting it upon the market. Buyers, to pro-
tect themselves, have been obliged to charge
the farmers with the proportion of weed seed
estimated to be contained in the wheat, but
they have also made a deduction in price for
the expense of cleaning this seed from the
wheat. Another, and by no means unim-
portant mistake we have been making for
twenty years past in wheat raising is, that
we
REPEATED OUR SEED,
G 1yall &c our crons on the same land The