The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1906-03-14
A New Farm Crop.

a new Farm crop.
Four years ago I bought two ounce
package of a new grain called speltz.
| afterwards learned that its true
name was emmer. | knew nothing
about it and sowed it about the 25th of
May, by which time it should have
been a foot high. 1t made a small
shock and it stood out in rainy wealth
er and fell down, and while II probably
would have made a peck of seed it was
so damaged that threw it to the hogs.
The plant resembles barley, with a
larger grain and somewhat larger
head. | did not think it would be
worth while to grow it, but the next
year | read something about it and
found it was identical in name with
emmer, which was largely grown in
the Northwest and is taking a promi
nent place as a money crop. The fol-
lowing year sowed bushel of it and
II yielded at the rate of forty-four
bushels to the acre. | raised enough of
it TO test it as food for horses, cattle
and poultry. II grows better than oats
and, ground and mixed viii an equal
bulk of bran or corn and cobmeal, ii
seems to give as good results either
for laying on flesh or for milk for
dairy COWS; and, mixed half and half
with oats, was found an admirable
food for horses. The third years crop
was fifty-three bushels to the acre,
and grew several acres; but my crop
for 1905. sown on very thin land, made
a lighter yield than before, but still
it thrashed out over thirty bushels to
the acre, and, as it weighs eight pounds
heavier than oats to the bushel this can
be added to the yield when we esti
mate the amount of feed it will pro-
duce.
The crop is one adapted to the semi
arid lands, and is not as likely to be
cut down in the yield as oats by dry
spring. 1t has the hardy properties of
oats and can be sown just as soon as
the ground can be worked in the spring
and can be harvested at the same time
as oats have sown oats and emmer
on the same day every spring that
have grown the emmer, and they are
harvested at the same time. We SOW
at the rate of two bushels to the acre
and think il a better crop to SOW
clover with than oats, as 1t does not
shade the ground as much.
In my Judgment. 1t is one of the
best and cheapest poultry foods that
can be grown. and, either soaked in
hot water for twelve hours or ground
and mixed with corn, it is a cheap and
excellent food. From my somewhat
limited experience with it, | would
say it is crop well worth growing by
farmers generally. If soaked it can
also be fed to young pigs and brood
sows. The grain of oats being much
smaller than emmer and the first that
| planted having been mixed slightly
with oats, find the proportion OF oats
has increased ever since, so that now
il is perhaps 10 percent oats. While
this does not hurt it for feeding or
reduce the yield materially, it is dis
advantage when grown for seed. Even
with this mixed emmer and oats 1t
would take but a short time to pull
the oats out of the shocks where seed
was to he saved. and shall do this
another year in order to get a pure
stock of seed.
The straw from emmer is fully equal
to barley straw. being soft and bright,
and it is eaten readily by stock. One
disadvantage of feeding the straw,
however is that there is such large
proportion of boards in it that it some
times makes the horses mouths sore,
and we cannot separate the boards as
easily with the machine now, used with
blowers as we could with the old ma
chimes.
have not made any test of the
feeding value of emmer which would
enable me to speak positively in re-
gard to 1t as compared with other
grain. but in corresponding with
manufacturer of oatmeal ! find that
oats give 80 to So percent of grain
when hulled, while emmer gives rs
percent, there being two distinct grains
in each hull This can be readily dis
covered by rubbing out few heads of
each in the hands. In running our
emmer through the tanning mill we
get out bushels of almost pure hulled
Waldo +. Brown in the
Tribune Farmer