Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1898-10-08
ABOUT WHEAT RAISING.

The ENQUIRER has no practical
knowledge of wheat raising. No one
connected with the paper has ever
sowed peck of the grain, and, there
fore, from actual experience we are
not prepared to give any valuable
information on the subject. But from
time to time our representatives have
had a great deal of intercourse with
the most experienced farmers of the
county, and notebooks in this Office
contain as many valuable points,
probably, as are possessed by any
one individual in the county.
Just as there are merchants and
merchants, newspapers and news
papers, lawyers and lawyers, etc.,
there are also farmers and farmers.
By this we mean that in all trades
and professions there are degrees in
intelligence, energy, capacity and ex-
perience, and because one represen-
tative of any trade or profession is
not capable of successfully perform
ing a given task, that is no reason
why all other representatives of that
trade or profession should also be
incapable. This proposition applies
as much to farming as any other
vocation, and before this article is
completed, it will be shown that the
proposition also has at least a casual
bearing on wheat growing in York
county.
One of the most common opinions
that We hear expressed on the wheat
subject by majority. of the farmers,
is that this is not a good country for
that crop. Just why, no intelligent
attempt is made to explain; but still
we are persistently told that it is a
fact. Without evidence to the con-
trary, we would be forced to accept
the statement but there is too much
evidence to the contrary. History
tells US that before the introduction of
cotton and for many years afterward,
wheat was staple crop of York coun-
ty. There are still among US old men
who can remember the days when the
wheat crop of this section represented
much greater values than did the cot
ton crop, and more convincing still,
there are to this day, in almost every
section of the county, intelligent,
well-to-do farmers who continue each
year to raise comparatively large crops
of wheat, and who insist that regard
less of any price that has heretofore
prevailed, they have realized more net
profit from their wheat crops than
from any other.
But from our information, it is not
difficult to explain why there are 80
many who insist that wheat cannot
be successfully raised in this section.
1t is because the cereal seldom re-
ceives a really honest trial at their
hands. Their methods are often such
as try the patience of even the cookie
bur. For instance, often as late as
November 20, or even Christmas, af-
ter the last lock of yellow, frost-bitten
AGENTS cotton has been picked off the
stalks, or three-bushels-to-the acre
corn gathered, the would-be wheat
raiser, discouraged with his past ex-
periepce, decides that he will give his
land "a rest" and "try his luck" on
wheat, and a veritable trial of luck
it is.
Not having previously tried to raise
any wheat for three or four years, he
has no seed, and that is the first thing
to be attended to. Here he makes his
initial mistake. Instead of going to
DR.. T. w. Campbell, some of the Les
lies, w. S. Wilkerson, B. F. White, R.
w. Whitesides, w. M. Faulkner, R. j.
Love, R. N. Plaxico, w. ]. Gordon,
J. F. Carson, or some other neigh
Dor who has been making a sue
cess of wheat growing for years, he
has to have seed that are "extra fine,"
and sends to Virginia for them. He
may get them but just as apt as 9TH
wise he will get something out of the
toll box of one of the big Touring
mills. However, he is satisfied and at
once proceeds to the next stage OF his
experiment.
The wornout cotton or corn patcn
having already been extensively
"worked" during the summer, is not
considered to require much more labor,
so among the grass, weeds, cotton or
corn stalks, he scatters his toll wheat
from Virginia at the rate of about a
bushel to the acre, and plows it in.
AS often as anything else he uses
small twister. Some of the seeds are
covered and some are not, some of the
oot,o, .tolLo GRASS and weeds are