Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-03-05
AGRICULTURAL.
MATTER PREPARED SPECIALLY FOR
THE RECORD UNION"
Baked Soil and wheat-Alfalfa on the Sac
ramento The Wool Show in
London-Etc.

This has been an exceptional season with
wheat farmers. The fall was splendid one
for putting in early grain, but past expert
ence in very early sowing made the farmers
feel little doubtful about the propriety OF
sowing their grain very early. They had had
so many checks by drought after wheat was
sown and out Of the ground, that they pre-
ferred waiting till the danger of drought was
more certainly passed This prudent DISPOSE
ton caused delay in sowing the summer
fallowed land till rather later than usual, and
till rain sufficient had fallen to soften land in
tended for winter following sufficiently for
cultivation. When this time arrived the
summer-fallowed land was yet unsown, and
had to be put in before work could he begun
at the winter blowing proper. Even before
the summer-fallow work was out OF the way
there came so much water that all cultivation
and seeding had to cease, and the rain has
been so continuous that up to this TIME
the LIST of March - not over half as
much land is in wheat as was last year at this
date Much of the early-sown grain was
sown and covered when the soil was really
too wet for cultivation, and was not, there
fore, left in good condition, and all of it has
been beaten down by heavy storms and
soaked by an excess of water till but very
small portion of the small area now in wheat
can be said to be in promising condition.
The packed and baked surface is growing
harder with each days exposure to the sun
and with each return of the drying north
wind. With so little wheat in the ground.
farmers are, of course anxious to employ all
the time possible in putting in more, and do
net feel hardly justified in delaying the seed
ing for the late crop to lay out any work on
the suffering early crop. We think, however,
that in many instances farmers can make
more money by cultivating their early-sown
grain than by sowing more. This parched
soil from the surface downwards facilitates
evaporation, and unless something be done
to check this evaporation we are likely to ex-
perience a season in which our wheat crop
will suffer both from too much water during
the forepart of the season and from drought in
the latter part of the season. A good culti-
walton Of the surface soil is what is needed by
the wheat crops at this time This cultiva-
ton would break up the capillary conducting
channels formed in the soil, and thus check
and hold back the evaporation now going on
through them, or even one inch of loose soil
on the surface would act as a mulch to hold
the moisture from escape and thus retain it to
be taken up by the wheat rootlets just at the
time most needed by the wheat-when the
grain is being formed and perfected. A good
cultivation of field that looks yellow and
sickly, though appearing to tear it to pieces
badly at the time, will cause the color of the
growing grain to change in few weeks to a
deep rank green, and will probably add fifty
per cent to the yield. We fail to remember
a season when cultivation of wheat was so
much needed in this State, and when such
cultivation would do so much good.