Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1890-06-28
E4ytt4 XHtertsts,
NOTES ON WHEAT CULTURE.
Time of Sowing--Clean Seed Chang
ing Seed Thorough Tillage- The
Drill Ahead Mulching.


country. Paying crops are the rule
here but there are always some fail
ures, or partial failures. Usually
these could be avoided. The poor
crops nearly always come from the
farmers not doing their part.
Now / presume nearly all of your
readers in the winter-wheat belt
know how to grow a large crop as
well as 1; but we all need stirring
up and reminding from time to time.
Doing the same thing over every
year we get careless, sometimes, and
forget how very little neglect may
cost us a good many dollars.
A neighbor who beat us all last
year, having nearly 40 bushels per
acre of fine wheat, had to put up
this year with less than half a crop.
What was the trouble? He told me
he was a little too late about sowing
anyway, and then through some
mistake the drill put on only about
three pecks of seed per acre, when at
that late time a bushel and a half
would have been none too much.
He has splendid wheat land, in the
best of condition, and this has been a
much better season than last; but on
8 acres he is short about $3.50 from
these two little mistakes.
After long experience l feel almost
sure Of a big crop if 1 can get my
seed in as soon as the Sth of Septem-
Der, in moist ground, right after a
rain if possible. At this time, and
with these favorble conditions, SO
quarts of Fultz wheat would be all
the seed I would care to put in. The
next week, or with conditions not
quite as perfect, l would SOW 40
quarts. This for strong land that
will cover the surface with fall
growth, and supposing the seed to be
good and clean. A good mill to
clean seed is needed now, along with
the drill and other improved tools.
Some make the mistake every year
of sowing seed just as it comes from
the threshing machine, with foul
stuff in it. If it is perfectly clean
and plump then, why all right; but
if it is not, man would better buy a
mill if he only sows 10 acres, and
clean his seed perfectly.
l like to select the very best spot
in the field from which to take my
seed, putting the wheat by itself
With this care l am not sure that
wheat will "run out" very soon, in
this good wheat locality. This
changing of seed wheat is question
. several of your readers have written
me about, at different time. re-
member one farmer in Indiana who
wrote me last year that he had
crop Of Fultz wheat yielding some 81
bushels per acre; and asked mi
whether 1 would advise him to senC
here for a change of seed. l tolC
him l would not change when m!
own wheat was doing so we'll for me
Seed potatoes from the northeast pa!
me, and a good friend from you
State told me the other day he fel
sure that l could get several bushel
more per acre of wheat by gettinI
new seed from a good distant section
lam quite inclined to get a few bush
els and try it. There is no use in be
ing too sure you are right, wher
there is any chance for doubt. Tha
it will pay our Southern friends t
send up here for seed seems to b
pretty certain, as for some 8 or !
years back my wheat has gone to
locality in Kentucky for seed. The
would not go to this trouble so Ion
if it did not pay. But whether
change will pay me, in this cOole
climate, is another question.
A Rochester friend, who has trav
eled in Ohio a good deal, told m
lately that we did not prepare tn
ground as well here as they d
around Rochester. This is certainl
one reason why some farmers fail
raise a full crop. One sees ever
fall fields put in where all the labC
and manure put on half the acre
would have paid better but it is Ii
way with many of our Ohio and we
tern people to want to spread then
selves. Tillage spread out too thi
makes big show-until the thresl
ers come round. This is one sin
think your correspondent will new,
have to answer for. He believes
cutting up the ground with cultivt
tor, cutaway or disc harrow, eros
-