The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1894-11-02
SELECTION OF SEED WHEAT.
Use Only the Driest. Heaviest, Hardest and
Best Market Grades,

Best Market Grades.
With the hasty methods practiced by
the great wheatgrowers of the prairie3
there has been miscellaneous use of in
different, weedy and disease contami-
mated seed wheat. AS a natural result,
says Professor H. L. Bolley of North
Dakota, the wheat yield is now inferior
to the product as shipped and is of a quail
lty far below the standard which the ca
tacities of the prairies warrant. The
soil is becoming overrun by foreign and
obnoxious weeds, and the granaries Of
the northwest are being contaminated
with smut. Though the quality Of the
flour remains of the highest standard, it
is only after the wheat has been cleared
at a great cost of labor and much loss
in screenings, so that wheat raising is
becoming Improbable and unpopular in
the best cheap wheat producing regions
of the United States.
Wheat must continue to be q staple
production of the prairies, and if the es.
timation Of its qualities is now as high
as that placed upon the best product of
other wheat producing regions the EN-
ployment By the prairie farmer of the
extra care given to the cultivation and
the harvesting of wheat in those other
regions would certainly place the North
American product upon a very superior
basis. As now placed upon the market,
says American A%griculturist, prairie
wheat owes its worth and commercial
reputation to its peculiar physical and
chemical qualities, due to real merits of
soil and atmospheric conditions and not
to any careful methods in its culture.
As a general product it is inferior in
yield and in general appearance. The
discrepancy in the size and form Of the
grains is always % matter of surprise to
foreigners, and al ~unfavorable impress
sion is made upon those who do not
know its real merits. But prairie wheat
is not necessarily inferior either as to
the form and size of grain or to the
yield and general appearance. Even it's
milling qualities can be improved.
Wheat has attained its present flour
ing qualities through constant care. The
improved varieties have been attained
through the careful selection of the most
satisfactory seeds from the best individ.
ual plants by a continuous process
through many years. A high grade seed
wheat can thus be reached which will
maintain its good qualities under proper
methods of culture.
Wheat which is immature from any
cause, whether premature harvest,
drought, rust or smut, is weakened in seed
strength because of q weakened germ;
and Of q lack of q full food supply il
the grain. Any seeds which have at any
time been heated or bin burned from
moist fermentation in bulk are very apt
to be injured. Wet wheat which has
been frozen and thawed several times
cannot safely be used as seed; neither
can wheat which has been winter
bleached in the shock or in small stacks
The very best grades of frosted wheat
possess less strength in their first growth
i'll the seed bed and yield less than the
best mature wheat, though the good ap-
pearance of the field from frosted seed
may deceive the farmer. The market
price Of wheat is fixed by the require
ments Of the miller and baker, but its
seed value depends upon its capacity for
normal reproduction. When in doubt,
only the driest, heaviest, hardest, best
market grades of wheat should be USED
for seed, says the authority quoted. The
best friend Of the wheat farmer is the
tanning mill, for it takes out the weed
seeds with tho light and the small