The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-08-12
WHEAT AFTER SPRING GRAIN.

Tho Important Point In Getting Good
Wheat After Stubble of Any Kind.
Probably three-fourths of the winter
wheat in this country is grown after
some preceding crop. usually oats or
barley, in localities where mixed hus-
bandry prevails. Where wheat is grown
almost exclusively the same land is
sown. year after year, until insects or
soil exhaustion produce failure. It is
often thought that after spring grain
wheat is surer than it is after wheat.
So it is as regards insect enemies. But
as for soil exhaustion the oat crop prob
ably takes as much of the plant food re-
CURED by wheat as does a preceding
wheat crop. It uses about as much
phosphate of lime and nitrogen, and
growing more quickly, it draws these
important materials from nearer the
surface than does wheat, according to
The American Cultivator, which says:
Whatever grain crop is to be succeed
ed by wheat its stubble should be plowed
under as quickly as possible. It does
not pay to wait to draw out the summer
made manure before blowing. The
manure will do more good if used as
top dressing and merely cultivated
slightly under the surface. This packs
the plowed ground and is harder work
for the teams. but manure wagons
should have wide tires, SO that they will
not cut the plowed ground deeply. If
there are frequent rains the scattered
grain left at harvesting time will sprout
and need to be cultivated under. The
sooner this is done after the young grain
shows above the surface the better for
the seed bed. If the manure has been
drawn and spread before blowing we
would advise cross blowing to bring as
much of it as possible near the surface.
Land thus double plowed needs to be
cultivated and rolled good deal to
make it solid enough, but with the
manure mixed through it, as it will be
by double blowing, the wheat will make
a stronger fall growth and stand the
winter better than it will to keep the
manure at the bottom of the furrow all
the next season. In the fall this ma
nure dries the land. In winter it makes
it more porous and enables it to absorb
more water. It is not usually spread
thick enough to heat, and its soluble
parts are washed down into the subsoil
often before the wheat roots are able to
reach them.
The most important point in getting
good wheat after stubble of any kind is
not to SOW until after heavy soaking
rain sufficient to wet down as far as the
plow has gone. Such rain is necessary
to compact stubble ground, whose ten
dency, however cultivated, is to dry up
rather than grow moister under light
rains that will thoroughly noisten fields
plowed before harvest. Oftentimes in
droughts it seems as if stubble ground
grew drier and dustier the more it is
stirred. If. the stubble has been left
short it may proftably be narrowed be-
fore blowing. This will cover scattered
grain so that if light rains come it will
terminate. The loose soil that this har-
rowing will leave on the surface acts as
a mulch and helps to save the moisture
in the soil from evaporating, and when
plowed much of the grain that has been
slightly covered will be terminated, and
when plowed under will never come to
the surface again.