The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1906-02-02

Interesting Talks ON an ImpOr.
tant subject.

Interesting Talks ON an ImpOr-
! tant subject.
The seed talk at the opera
house Tuesday afternoon was
fairly we'll attended. The special
train which is conveying the
lecturers about the country did
not arrive until near two o'clock.
When they did get to the opera
house they proceeded to get
right down to business without
loosing any time. The talk was
along the line of the necessity of
pure seed, no matter what kind
of grain was to be used.
! Mr.. Parker, of the Minnesota
Experiment station, was the first
speaker. He said that no mat
ter what kind of seed you are go.
ing to use, get the best. In
raising crops for profit this was
necessary. Every farmer should
test his seed to see what per
cent of termination it contained.
Spread the seeds out on a moist
cloth on plate and over this
spread another damp cloth. Set
this in a warm room for two or
three days and then examine
closely. Examine the seed oc-
casionally and as fast as they
sprouted take them out. Keep
this up from six to ten days.
Count the sprouted seeds and
that number would be the per-
centage of seed that would ger
inmate. The original mum Der
for test should be one hundred.
Mr.. Parker spoke of the great
loss resulting from smut to
small grains. 1t could be remed-
led to a considerable extent by
the farmer if he would but take
the proper care of his seed
grains. The best of these that
he knew of was the formalde-
hydetreatment. This consisted of
one pound or pint of formalde-
hyde to one barrel or As gallons
of water Either sprinkle this
on the seed grain on a clean
floor, or put the seed into a sack
and place in the solution long
enough to get we'll covered, then
spread out to dry. There are
machines to do this work if
one desired them but either of
the above methods was just as
good.
A. W. Schone Of this city hand
ed Mr. Parker some samples of
macaroni wheat which were
raised in this state asking il it
could be successfully raised in
this state and what were the re-
quired conditions. Mr.. Park er
replied that this kind of wheat
was originally imported to this
country from Australia. That
the soil must be light and not
very damp-where the soil was
heavy and the rainfall % or 80
inches during the season maca
roni wheat could not be grown
successfully. He then turned
the meeting over to W. A
Wheeler of the South Dakota
Agricultural college at Brook
ings who spoke along similar
lines on corn. What we wanted
was better seed all along the
line. This in corn as in other
seeds. Pick only such seed as
was adapted to the portion of the
: country where it was to be
planted. Get it from your
neighbors or as near home as
possible When husking and
gathering corn in the fall select
the good corn as you go through
your field. When you find an
ear such as he described throw
it into separate part of the box
aud reserve it for seed. Select
only ears that are cylindrically
shaped aud with the kernels
grown we'll to the end. The
kernels should be quite long
This is the best corn to selec,
for seed purposes. He showed
the audience the difference in the
amount of corn on two ears, one
long tapering ear and the other
as he had described; the latter
while being no larger than thu
other had contained by far the
most corn. Mr.. Wheeler furth
er explained how to test the seeo
as to its terminating qualities
Take q box and q couple of inch
es deep cover the bottom
with sand or sawdust that
} has been dampened. Over
this spread damp cloth and on
this put your seed corn for test
Keep track of the kernels that
. sprout. and il the percentage
runs below 05 do not use it. There
ic M roncnn whu Good cOnI0