Milford chronicle., 1915-07-16
COUNTY AGENT NEWS NOTES.

Wheat threshing is about finished
an the county and the yield on the av-
serage is below normal. Part of this
3ow Weld has been preventable. Dam
age has been done in some sections
bv the Hessian fly and in other section
by the sinking smut commonly called
sbusn. Some little trouble from the
Joint worm has been noticed. Now is
s6he time to begin the battle against
these pests and troubles which will
appear in next years crop.
1t is a common practice to seed
wheat after wheat, and this practice
contributes to the increase of insects
and fungi diseases. Where this is the
custom. and changing the rotation is
Enot feasible it will pay to take GER
tain precautions. AS soon as the
wheat is threshed it will be a good
Milan to disk the wheat stubble pre-
Vious to blowing. This practice will
induce the volunteer wheat to grow
and at the same time saves the soil
moisture. The Hessian fly is now in
-ghe fiaxseed stage and will remain so
zuntil early August. Deep plOwing be-
fore this time will destroy great
,nany insects and turns the volunteer
wheat out of the way. Where cOndi-
lions allow in the county, seeding
-.should be postponed until October 10.
After this date, under normal weather
conditions. little damage from the fly
need be expected.
Sinking Smut or "bust" is a more
serious trouble in some places than
the Hessian fly. This is a fungus dis
ease, the source of which is the mass
g0f spores inside the infected grain. |
These give the fungus the undesirable |
.OdOr. 1t is possible to have this smut |
even though the seed wheat was all |
apparently sound and unaffected. But, |
the seed may have been infected from |
a number OF sources, such as the |
threshing machine, which always has
Ihese spores present, more or less.
The seed may have been infected in
the bin. by means of grain sacks or
by p wheat drill This trouble may
be easily ana cheaply controlled by
the proper application of the forma-
lin treatment One pint of fOrmalin,
procurable at any drug store, to 40
or So gallons of water, will be suffi-
cient to treat the seed on the average
Earm. and the cost of the materials
need not exceed one cent per bushel.
Get special information from the
ADunll agent. l4dLeI Ou d bpeCldi d. !
ticle on this treatment will be given.
Experiments have shown and eX- 5
perience of farmers proven that some i
varieties of wheat are naturally the (
stronger yielders, more hardy and ]
prolific than are other varieties. The ,
bearded wheats taken as a class are {
usually more prolific. heavier stoOlers i
and better able to stand adverse con- {
ditions of the weather than are the {
smooth wheats. If your wheat is dis {
eased or mixed and seems Of a low {
yielding strain, it will pay every S
grower to procure one of the more pro {
life and better yielding sorts. As
smooth wheat Leaps Prolific is prov 1
ing about the best all around smooth I
wheat yet tried in Delaware. Perfec- e
lion is a high yielding variety, but the a
seed is scarce. There are number S
IF good bearded varieties. Some of t
the better ones are Gypsy, Stoner or o
Miracle, Rudy, Lancaster and Niger. s
Beware of varieties of high sounding v
names, for which the introducers s
make extravagant claims. v
Some varieties of wheat have been is
iOld and the claims made for them is
hat one peck to one half bushel of f,
eed per acre was sufficient, because
4 the stooling powers of such wheat, al