Semi=weekly graphic., 1899-11-15
Thin Seeding of erain


 essary says American Cultivator Enc ilsn summers are nearly always moist. ana as farm land is generally rich it needs this thick seeding to make the plants crowd each other from the start ana thus prevent too luxuriant growth. dere 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 ln field and found at the end of the row that a wider balk was made than ehe single width of the drill passing across the rows at each end would GOV CT. We were only sowing with the drlll 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 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, bushel and half drilled in with some phosphate is better than a greas. CT quantity. There is no crop, not even wheat, to which commercial; phosphate is so well adapted as the oat. With this lighc seeding of oats. which should always be drilled early, we gave the oats a light narrowing just after tPe yorng shoots began to come 7p. This broke down the ridges be- 1 tween tho rows, and entirely covered the leaves that first put forth But it gave a great stimulus to root growth and in 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 plentifully that no more crust will form on the surface through the season. Such grain always cov- 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 l 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 a single oat grain has been known to produce six to seven stems bearing a head we'll filled with oats It is plain that as usually sown much of the seed oats fail to produce any thing. Oats are often threshed while l still damp from the field, and if such oats are put in close bins the vitality of their germ is quickly destroyed by l 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 ordinary crop conditions. All our grains are doubt less for our climate sown more thicklJ than is necessary. More attention te the quality of seed and its ability to germinata would pay farmers better. Grain that either will not grow, or that makes such a feeble growth that neigh boring grain dwaCfs it. is about the most expensive manure farmer can use Yet this is what many farmers 1 are doing with a large part of the seed grain that they put into the soil, where lt simply rots and furnishes plant fosG &or the seed Dhat could germinate-
 Tn. Imperial Guard of France. 1 The Imperial guard of France was created by Napoleon I. from the Guard of the Convention, the directory ana the consulate, when he became em' peror in 1894. It consisted at first or BITS men, but was afterwards en- larged. It was subdivided in l89o into Old and Young guard. In January, 1874. it numbered 102,7 706. It was dis solved by Louis XVIII. in 1915, revived bv Napoleon III. in 1854. It surren- dered with Metz to the Germans the 27th of October, 1S70 and was aboi- ished by the defence government soon after. It took part in the Crimean war 1855. As a corps d'elite it was one ol the finest bodies of troops in the world in the time of Napoleon l., ana the history of France and it's wars abounds with numerous instances of its bray ! cry fortitude, and intense attaahmen' l tn lie ttFie hting Emperor.