Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1899-07-13
Culture of Wheat.

At the wheat growers convention
recently held in Macon, Ca, Mr.. C.
H. Morrill,, Bibb County, Georgia,
presented very suggestive paper on
Wheat Culture" from which we take
the following: The land should be
well plowed, but not too deeply, at
time of sowing, and the grain worked
in with harrow and then rolled to
firm the soil over the seed. When it
gets we'll started wheat grows rapidly,
but it is not very vigorous plar t and
cannot fight its way as we'll as many
of our cultivated grains. In order to
make success reasonably sure it is
necessary that the land should be very
carefully suited to receive the seed.
If the soil is very rich it is all the bet.
ter. If the land has been partially
exhausted an abundance of plant food
must be supplied. This food must be
in condition for immediate use.
Coarse manures will do little good.
Stable manure and green cotton seed
is not plant good and will decay and
eau be assimiated. The wheat plant
is delicate feeder and its food must
be carefully prepared. Wheat may
follow pea crop if the land is rich
enough otherwise, as the pea crop
furnishes nitrogen stored in its roots
which the wheat crop must have. In
this case, however, some chemical
fertilizers should be used. In any
and every case the land should be
made rich and the plant food which it
contains must be near the surface. In
this section 1 should prefer chemical
manures to any other form of fertil-
izers and should apply it heavy. AS
the wheat crop, including the grain,
straw and chaff, takes from the soil
twenty-four pounds of phosphoric
acid, fiftynine pounds nitrogen,
thirty-one pounds potask, we must
apply these clements of plant food to
the soil in the shape Of nitrate of soda
at the rate of $50 pounds to the acre,
half at time of sowing, the other half
as top-dressing in the spring, and
500 pounds Of fertilizer containing
nine per cent. of phosphoric acid and
twelve per cent. of potash.
Too much stress can hardly be laid
upon thorough preparation of the
soil. Under the common system of
management ell that can be done
towards making the crop is finished
when the sowing is performed. Wheat
is peculiar plant and requires fcur
peculiar conditions of soil and care.
AS in its fruit it is superior to all
other grains, so in it's habits it is more
particular and exacting than others.
1t cannot endure conditions in which
corn or oats would flourish. 1t re-
quires rich, clean soil aud should
follow a'crop that has been cleanly
cultivated and all weed seeds eradi-
Gated from the land The wheat
growers of the West have followed the
same land killing process that the cot
ton farmers of the South have fol-
lowed, every successive crop dimin-
ishes the supply of organic matter,
and from the careless culture every
successive year increases the stock of
weeds. If wheat could receive the
very best system of culture so that the
ground should be mechanically in
proper condition and weeds be kept
out, good crops of wheat could be
grown much longer without manuring
the soil, by proper cultivation simply.
The, experiments of Mr.. Loves, of
England, seem to indicate this. He
raised twenty-seven successive crops
of wheat from one plant of land with
out any manure. The crop of 1914
was fifteen bushels per acre, and that
OF 1870 exactly fifteen bushels, this
amount also being the average yield
during the entire time. 1t should be
understood that the ground was kept
free from weeds, the wheat being in
drills and the soil cultivated between
them. Farm, Field and F'ireside.