Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1899-10-09
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 nec- essary, says American Cultiyator. Eng fish summers are nearly always moist, and as farm land is generally rich 1t 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 wider balk was made than the single width of the drill passing across the rows at each end would GOV 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 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 a half drilled in with some phosphate is better than a great. CT quantity. There is no crop, not even wheat, to which commercial phosphate is so we'll adapted as the oat. With this Hght seeding of oats. which should always be drilled early, we gave the oats light narrowing just after tPe young 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 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 I0osened 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 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 go to 100 bushels of oats from so light a seeding as one and one-hat 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 well filed with oats It Is plain that as usually sown 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 ir 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 ordinary crop conditions. All our grains are doubt less for our climate sown more thickly than is necessary. More attention to the quality of seed and it's ability to germinate would pay farmers better. Grain that either will not grow, or that makes such feeble growth that neigh boring grain dwarfs it, is about the most expensive manure a farmer can use. Yet this is what many farmers are doing with large part of the seed grain that they put into the soil, where 1t simply rots and furnishes plant food for the seed that could germinate.