The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-07-28
[pREPARED FOX THE HERALD.
LctusImpsoye Our wheat

The farmers of North Texas need not be
told that they raise the poort ! Of poor
wheat. They already know that. Much Of
thai which cones to this market is of such
low 10 it only commands forty cents
per bushel, or Just half.price. To some ex-
tent this is attributable to half tanning and
its being received so full of chatf and dust
as to be scarcely mercheutable at all. But
winnow all this away and grains not much
greater in size than turnip seed are left.
And, small as they are, they are not perfect,
but look like the weavil had been around.
II is pertinent to ask just here the cause OF
our failure to raise as good quality as they
do in states Just north Of us. The idea that
there is something lacking in the soil or in
the climate Is too absurd, friyilOus and ride.
ulous for discussion. The rule is, everything
grows to greater state of perfection In Texas
than anywhere else, when properly cultivated.
And generally when given no, half the at
tention paid in other states we beat them in
ANYTHING grown. Wheat is an exception. In
this important cereal they all leave us lar be-
hind. We not only fail to make good crops
almost every year, but the little we do make
will barely grind second grade -four,
In the first place, our opinion is the seed we
SOW is fatally detective, There has not a
bushel of wheat been sold on the Dallas mar
ket this summer an Illinois farmer would
plant under any circumstances. II is too
small to inspire any confidence. When the
seed is poor the crop will be poorer, in spite
of the PRAYERS Of Paul and the water. OF
Apollos. This is a principle which under
lies all crops, all animals. You cannot gather
grapes from thorn bush. You are all be
levers in blooded stock and will give Ten
must ,gs for Morgan colt, and twenty
broad horns for Devon bull or an Alderney
heifer, then why don tyou carry your. princi'
pies to your wheat CROP You are whiting
away year after year upon this little Medlt-
teraneau and Red May trash when you know
by from one to twenty years experience that
il never did make good wheat and 1t never
will. You Should send west and get good
seed no matter If it took three bushels OF that
on hand to pay for one of IT. You can well
afford to make the exchange il by so doing
your next crop will command from twenty
to forty cents per bushel more than you are
now getting. But there is something and q
great deal In the cultivation.
With wheat more than almost any other
crop the prepara'i,l OF the land is one of the
determining influences which govern the
weld of grair. II is important that the sur
face soil should be exc ,dingly well pulyer-
lied the land well cultivated. Ii the soil
is rich, all right; if not, an
sbundN zee Of pant food must be furnished,
and what ia equally to the purpose, this food
be in condition for immediate use. The
wheat plant is q delicate one, which needs to
be assisted in the way suggested until it gets
good start, when ii will grow rapidly. The
seed may be sown at the rate of about two
bushels TO the acre, broadcast, or one and a
fourth 70 one and half bushels if drilled.
The best time for sc. ling winter wheat re.
mains an open que,tion. There is danger Of
the hessian fly if sown too early. Losses on
the other hand are sustained very often by
sowing too late. As in other extremes there
il doubtless happy medium in wheat SOW
ing which, until something TO the contrary il
proven, had better be followed.
II is cerf,in that our system is radically
wrong. aud needs revision. Our farmers
should have the courage to depsr,
from plans that have no other
recommer ton thend that they are veneer.
able. Now, our gran fathers were neither
all right nor all wrong. They had many
methods good until this day, but no one will
deny that in the aggregate the present sys
TENS of farming are vast improvements upon
those of fifty years ago. But, like they o.
old time, we cling with foolish tenacty Il
exploded ideas after the explosion has
occuue5,trying topersuade ourselves that nc
eaplot on has taken place, although w
have seen, heard and felt it, perhaps knocked
down byit. once knew a steamboat car
tain who invented boiler that wouldn',
"Lust." But one fne frosty morning my
friend was blown anywhere between forty
and one hundred feet into the air and ducked
in the river by that "biler." Yet, for year:
after, Captain Van Pelt did his bes
70 convince me some rascal had put q key Of
powder In his "biler:" But this cour
s,o,,ldv,v caas