Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1899-07-12
Thin Seeding of Grain.


 Thin Seeding of Grain.
 Less grain per acre is sown in this
 country than by English farmers, with
 whom three to three and one-half
 bushels of oats are often deemed nee
 essary. says American Cultiyator. Eng
 fish summers are nearly always moist,
 and as farm land is generally rich it
 needs this thick seeding to make the
 plants crowd each other from the start
 and thus prevent too luxuriant growth.
 Here such a seeding on land of mod
 crate fertility might not produce any
 thing but the straw of grain without any heads. We once drilled some oats
 in a field and found at the end of the row that a wider balk was made than
 the single width of the drill passing across the rows at each end would coY- CT. We were only sowing with the drill two bushels of seed per acre, so
 we thought not to leave any balks, to drill twice across each end. But the second drill width, though it made a good appearance. early dried up and amounted to nothing about the time the oats should head out.
 If clean, sound, plump oats can be had, a bushel and q half drilled in with some phosphate is better than great CT quantity There is no crop, not even wheat, to which commercial. phosphate is so well adapted as the oat. With this light seeding of oats, which should always be drilled early, we gave the oats light narrowing just after the yorng shoots began to come up. This broke down the ridges be tween the rows, and entirely covered the leaves that first put forth. But it gave a great stimulus to root growth, and in a few days two or three or may be more shoots would be put forth by the root for every leaf that was destroyed. The narrowing also loosened the surface soil, so that any crust formed by rains will be broken. The new leaves will start up so quick ly and so pIentifully that no more crust will form on the surface through the season. Such grain always GOV CTS the ground at harvest with bet ter crop than can be got from two to two and one-half bushels of seed sown per acre, but not narrowed after the grain comes up.
 The grain grown from such light seeding is nearly always plump and full. and is worth more for seed than grain grown in the usual way. On rich land with a fair season we have grown 90 to 100 bushels of oats from so light a seeding as one and one-half bushels per acre. Nor need this be sur prising as single cat grain has been known to produce six to seven stems, bearing a head well filled with oats It is plain that as usually s3wn much of the seed oats fail to produce any thing Oats are often threshed while still damp from the field, and if such oats are put in close bins the vitality of their germ Is quickly destroyed by heating To make sure of getting sound seed oats they should not be threshed until winter, and never be allowed to heat in even the least degree. Every such seed put into the ground will not only grow, but it can be made to produce a hundred fold, though this is hard to secure under ordlna y crop All our grains are doubt less for our climate sown more thiekly 1 than is necessary. More attention to the quality of seed and its ability to germinaee would pay farmers better | Grain that either will not grow, or that I makes such a feeble growth that neigh ! boring grain dwarfs it, is about tha most expensive manure 8 farmer can use. Yet this is what many farmers are doing with a large part of the seed [ grain that they put into the soil, where t simply rots and furnishes plant food tor the seed that could germinate.
 oau Jose Sca.e Aoroad.-Dr. Frank, one of the most noted scientists of Germany. recently presented a paper
 Il the Jose scale before the Der in Horticultural Society. In view of he attitude taken by Germany and France toward American fruit impor- ations and the scale, his conclusions te of interest. says Country Gentle nan H. savs there are two species If scale in Germany which have been bought possibly identical with the San Jose insect, but that his inyesti- cations prove their distinetness. He quotes American entomoiogists as say ng that the San Jose scale produces hree bToods yearly, each old female breeding about 600 young Dr Frank. however has satisfied himself that )nly one generation of about 90 is pro- iuced. He thinks it questionable whether the San Jose scale can live in Eurone al all. Me resnectfnnv sl1r-