Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1905-02-23

fasten yourself to the crank and
turn that crank until you have got
! up pretty good motion to throw
your seed over the floor, and you
will find that all the plump seed
will be thrown far away out from
. the machine and that all of the
heavy kernels will be thrown while
the light kernels will fall nearer the
machine. We find that many Of the
kernels are long and broad and thin
and have no plant food in them.
| These are the ones we want to get
| rid of. By separating them in this
way the plump ones go to the out
side. You can then make up your
mind where you will draw the line
to separate the plump grain from
the light, then draw line and
sweep up all outside of that line
for seed. That separation will
be as good separation as we
have ever tried. 1t has been tried
at other stations and it has been
tried by many farmers of this state.
We began our trip along in Septem
Der and quite number have told
me that tried it with good results.
Do you remember that when we
used those Trowbridge seeders that
our grain was always streaked?. If
you look it over just examine and
see if you do not find the best plants
farthest away from the tracks of the
wheels. This is caused by the best
seed being thrown farthest away and
the poor grain dribbing along be-
hind the wagon. This goes to show
that separation of that kind is
beneficial, and the more difference
there is between the plump and
shrunken grain the better.
Now, in the future what are
you gong to do for the future? +
say the thing to do for the future is
to take ordinary precaution in your
selection of seed. You should select
your seed grain in the field before
harvest time. Look over your fields
before harvest time; see where the
best of your crop is, select enough
SO yoa will have an ample supply of
seed. Keep it separated and thresh
it after you have threshed the main
part SO as to avoid as much as posi-
bic the mixing of the varieties from
other farms. Then save the seed
until the next spring or the next
winter.
Every man that has ever given
this matter any thought or attention
knows this. He knows that every
one of our agricultural plants we
are cultivating now are artificial.
Little by little they have changed
them and brought them up to the
present standard.
s"Are we going to admit that away
back in the dark ages the farmers
were able to gradually raise the
quality of our agricultural products
and got them up to the present
and we are unnble to make the inn
proyements they have in the past
| don't believe tits an insult to an
intelligent citizen if we are going to
say that he is unable to do what has
been done in the past. There is no
such thing as standing still and if
you are going to move forward you
had better get to moving. This is
the way to do it.
'In the matter of corn the same
thing holds good. In the selection
of corn go out and select your corn
in the field. Select it along at the
time after it has fully matured and
select on the standard of the stalk
first. Go through your field and
make up your mind what kind of
stock Of corn suits you. Get stalk
that suits you before you examine
the ear at all, because you don't
want desirable ear of corn on an
undesirable stalk. Then see il the
ear suits you, and carefully select
each ear You can test each indi-