The Glenwood post., 1912-09-21
STACK YOUR GRAIN

supplanted by either gasoline or steam
power threshing machines all over tine
west. While it is a general custom all
over the east to stack the small gra II
in a stack yard adjacent to the barn
lot, in the west where the combined
rvester-cutting, threshing and sack
ing the grain at one and the same
time-is not used, the grain is usually
threshed fyem the shock in the field.
Very little western grain is stacked.
This plan of threshing from the field
may save labor, but it loses grain,
causes "A loss in quality when threshed,
and prevents plowing or any prepara-
tion of seed bed in the field for tine
succeeding crop. Then, too, if the
grain is wheat, birds take a very heavy
toll.
The weather risk is too great to JUS
tify leaving the grain afield unless the
thresher can be procured soon after
cutting the grain. 1t seems unfortu-
nate for one to suffer loss of crop or
injury to grain after it is grown, when
the same can be protected from all loss
or injury by just little work and care.
One year in northern Colorado, the
writer saw a full million bushels of
grain reduced in quality below milling
or seed standard, with many fields
showing green-capped shocks from
growing grain. Abnormal rains had
sprouted the kernels in the shock with
the above results.
This past season, in some of the plat
eau valleys and mesas of the west,
! early SHOWS caught the crop in the
field, and it was well into March and
April, 1912, before all the 1911 crop
was threshed. Washington, California,
Oregon and parts of Idaho have COM
bined quite generally and shocked
grain is therefore not the rule where
these complete harvesters are found.
Many of our western farmers have
had so little experience stacking grain
that when they do attempt to thus save
their grain from risk of loss by birds
or weather their stacks are apt to
slope to the center so that said stacks
catch instead of shed water.
The consensus of opinion is that
stacking grain successfully depends up
on few fundamental facts The writ
er has hammered these out of the sue
cesses of wheat farmers in New York,
Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota Kansas
and other leading wheat states.
lst. Prevent absorption of soil mois-
ture from the ground. By p'owing the
ground of the stack yard, capillarity
is largely broken up, reducing the
amount of absorbed moisture the stack
will acquire, molding the lower bun
dies, Any other method such as placing
rails or other forms of wooden protec-
ton, on which to lay bundles, prevent
ing their coming in contact with the
ground, is good.
End. Set the bundles as you would in
the stack, and continue the form Of
stack from this as center, to the size
desired. Make the shape of the stack
round or elliptical,, never rectangular.
Bird. Keep the middle full all the
time, giving the bundles decided
pitch, shedding the water to the outside
of the stack and away from the center.
4th. Stacking wheat soon after cut
ting gives clean bright straw for feed
ing purposes, avoids danger of loss
from wet weather and birds and pre-
serves the kernels in way to make
better milling wheat than when left to
variable weather conditions in the
shock afield
9Th. Where possible, cut some slough
grass and put ON the stack tops green
from the cutting. When this grass
dries it will shed water like roof,
thoroughly protecting all grain bun
dies from injury by reason of wet
weather.
9th. Stacking grain in this way en-
ables the straw to absorb excess moist
ure in grain, so there is no later trouble
from heating in bin or elevator. Thus
it carries the grain "through the
| sweat in the stack
Following the above suggestions will
obtain grain in that physical condition
which, if the quality is what it should
be, commands a premium upon the mar
ket wherever it is threshed.
A Buckeye grain grower from Dun
kirk, Ohio, reports in the July 1st issue
of the Missouri Valley Farmer that he
has known grain buyers to make a
marked difference in the price Of
thresher grain from the stack over that