Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1899-08-14
Thin Seeding of Grain.

 country than by English farmers. with whom three to three and one-half bushels of oats are often deemed nec- 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 tuxuriant 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 field and found at the end of the row that a wider ba1k was made than the single width of the drill passing across the rows at each end would GOV CT. We were only sowing with tho 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 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 solne 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. wa gave the oats a light narrowing just after the yonng shoots began to come up. This broke down the ridges be- tween the rows, and entirely covered khe leaves that first put forth. But it gave 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 1oosened 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 coy- CTS the ground at harvest with a 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 seeding as one and one-half bushels per acre. Nor need this be sur prising as a 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 sown much of the seed oats fail to produce any thing. Oats are often threshed while stfll 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 te produce hundred fold, though this is hard to secure under ordinary eroI conditions. All our grains are doubt. less for our climate sown more thickly than is necessary. More attention tt the quality of seed and it's ability te germinate would pay farmers better Grain that either will not grow, or tha makes such a feeble growth that neigh boring grain dwarfs it, is about th' most expensive manure farmer cal use. Yet this is what many farmers are doing with large part of the sect grain that they put into the soil, wher' 1t simply rots and furnishes plant foot for the seed that could germinate.
 French Literary Pirates.