Connecticut western news., 1880-10-13
FARM AND GARDEN.
New York Farmers Experience In Thick and Thin Seeding and
 Preparing the Land.

Preparing the Land.
 At a recent meeting of the Elmira (N. Y. Farmers Club letter was read from B. H. Benedict, Braceville, O., re- garding his experience in seeding wheat last fall. It appears from this commu- nication that MT. Benedict had always been in the habit of using from one and half to two bushels of seed to the acre until last autumn, when by an error in setting the drill he planted small patch not to exceed the rate of one busheI per acre. The piece contained little less than three-fourths of an acre; the soil was sand and gravel, with small per centage of clay, just enough to give texture, but still easy to cultivate sub soil hard pan, or rather clay and gravel, very solid. The land had been under cultivation-frst to potatoes, then to corn, then to potatoes twice in suc- cession. No manures of any kird were used upon the piece either with the potatoes or the wheat. There were fifty-one and half dozens of fair bind upon the piece, which had not been threshed at the time of writing the let ter. Another field of three acres, blue- grass sod turned under, rec eived at seeding two bushels per acre. The re- suits were not nearly so satisfactory as were those from the thinly- seeded plot. MT. Benedict feels confident that one bushel of seed to the acreis all sufficient when the ground has been well pre- pared, and this is the amount he pro- poses to use in the future. Too much pains cannot be used in making the ground fine first and then firmly pack ing with crusher or roller. Upon lands not under drained, naturally or other wise, where surface draining is depended upon, MT. Benedict believes that blow ing four inches deep is better than eight or ten inches, if pains be taken in mak- ing the seed-bed fine and then firmly packed afterwards, for this reason, that during the winter and springrains, when the ground is liable to freeze suddenly, there is not as much loose soil to hold the water and by quick freezing make the ground heavier, thereby killing the young wheat plants.
 J. Bridgeman told how he fitted a field that he had just finished seeding. He gave it one good blowing with a small blow which stirred all the soil and broke it up we'll. After the shelled oats came up so that the plowed field was green he put a wheel cultivator on and worked the surface all fresh. He went over it twice with the cultivator, then narrowed it twice and rolled all. When he had drilled the seed in about one- third of the field 8 heavy rain came, and in drying off there was crust formed, so he dragged the remainder be- fore the drill.
 w. A. Armstrong asked at this point | If the proportion would not have been better had the field not borne oats this year, to which MT. Bridgeman replied that @ summer fallow would have been the very best preparation, but if the field had lain bare all summer on corn stubble, as it was before he plowed for oats, he thought the chance would not have been as good as it is now.
 G. W. Hoffman accepted MT. Bridge mans view because it presupposes | weeds, and weeds unmolested during the growing season might abstract more l fertility than oats. But if the field had been plowed in spring and three weeks later narrowed, and again narrowed after three weeks more and then again after another three weeks, then plowed few days before seeding, that would have been better treatment than the fitting ii received.
 To this MT. Bridgeman replied
 "Yes, that would be summer fallow I know oats draw upon the soil and re duce the chances of the subsequent
 wheat crop, but we can do no better sometimes than to bring crop of oat
 between the corn and wheat. Many 0
 you will remember the appearance O
 that field two years ago, after I hat
 seeded it with clover and gathered l OlOG OA II OI BUILD ACttoOu 1U lldt
 an unusual growth of foul stuff, so
 resolved to break it up, as I did, ant
 planted corn, following with oats.
 have just threshed the oats raised iron
 seeding of two and half bushels t.
 the acre, and they gave an average fo
 the whole field of seventy bushels to tn
 acre-a larger yield, I think, than an,
 farmer in this county ever had from on
 bushel of seed"
 MT. Wood said: "As compared wit oats and wheat or barley and wheat tn
 crops of two seasons, the single whea } crop raised after the summer falloN should not be expected to have as muc ) value. But that is not the whole ques } tion. It is certainly possible. that, con } sidering future crops and the certain los of fertility through the intervening croI
 the oat or barley crop may be produce ) at positive loss and that summer fallo7 as preparation for wheat may in tn long run give more profit than would b found in the intervening oat or parle crop"
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