The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-10-29

Hand Sowing vs.. Drill soWing-FertilixinR
Time for sowing-The Kind Of Seed
Needed.
correspondence OF The Progressive Farmer.
Ger last weeks article on wheat
was how TO prepare the ground. The
next we want 30 know is, How and
when 80 SOW wheat for profit. The
writer has seen is sown almost every
way and sowed Ii as all times from
the middle Of September until the
first of January in North Carolina
and Virginia. No matter how we'll
your ground may be prepared, or
how good your seed may be, or how
much fertilizer you may use, if your
wheat is not sowed right and at the
right time all is in vain that you can
or may do TO make a profitable yield.
The old plan of
SOWING WHEAT WITH THE HANDS
will not do TO bring profitable yield
of wheat. When you SOW with the
hands, you get some too thick, some
too thin, and some will get ploughed
In too deep, some not deep enough
and still others not at all.
Now, with wheat sowed in that
condition, how could you expect
profitable yieldP You find all over
the country men who will go after
the corn is gathered and plough up
Just what little loose ground there is
and SOW it down with the hands and
expect TO make wheat. And off of
that kind of sowing they would get
about five bushels of wheat per acre
and their seed would cost 81 and
their work to SOW is would be worth
81 and it would cost 81 TO harvest it
all told before they could get it
thrashed Is would cost them about
81 per acre. And at the price wheat
has been selling for the last two years
his five bushels of wheat would net
him $3 so. So yo1 see he is losing
instead of gaining on wheat raising.
My experience and observation
has convinced me there is
BUT ONE PROFITABLE WAY TO SOW
WHEAT
and that is drill is after the ground
has been thoroughly prepared, as we
described in our last article on this
subject. Drill it and use fertilizer
There is no use to drill and fertilize
it if your ground is not thoroughly
ploughed. If it is not ploughed good
and deep the fertilizer will do harm
in place of good.
Last year we took one acre in
three acre lot and drilled it with
about 225 pounds TO the acre of 13
per cent. acid phosphate. The land
was Just common upland and the
acre made 10 bushels of wheat. We
took the other two acres, the very
same kind of land, and sowed them
down with our hands and ploughed
the wheat in with shovel ploughs !;
on these two acres we made about 5
OF bushels, a yield about one third
On two acres of what was made on
one acre properly prepared and we'll
drilled and fertilized. To prepare
she acre we drilled cost about 81, the
seed 81, the fertilizer about 81, 80
SOW it 81, and to harvest and thrash
.t $3.50, making q total cost of about
G6 so. The fifteen bushels of wheat
stthe selling price when we thrashed
would have net us about 81. 25 that
would have given us a profit of about
*4.75 TO that acre, very good profit
for common clay upland. And on
the two acres we did not drill we
l0st in place of gaining.
There was a man who lived near
us last year and he prepared all his
ground we'll and fertilized it. Part
If it he drilled and the other he
sowed down both wheat and fertili
asr with his hands. And on what
-e drilled he made about as much
gain per acre as he made on what
he sOwed with his hands To drill
"aeat is the only sensible way there
So put it in the ground and my ex-
|arienCe has been that it is the only
srsItable way 80 SOW. If you have
and that is rich enough to bring
~-eat without fertilizer, am of the
opinion that it will pay you to drill
1T And this for the simple reason
j--t If we just SOW enough wheat
GOVT on a lot of land to bring good
stand and one-fifth gets covered so
1eep that it never comes, and one
"th doesn't get covered so deep as