A BUSHEL PROM EVERY POUND OF WHEAT.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1030, 4 May 1883, Page 2

A BUSHEL PROM EVERY POUND OF WHEAT.

That a bushel of wheat, on an average all over the country, should be produced from eveiy pound sown, ought to be a fact, and not an expression in so many words. That a bushel can be- raised from every pound of wheat sown under all ordinary circumstances is a fact that farmers should verify every season. So long as they sow 90 to 120 pounds per acre, generally on poor land or on land poorly prepared, there will always be small crops and poor seed. When it takes three to live pounds of seed to raise a bushel, it is, to say the least, a ruinous waste. Enough iB wasted in such seeding to supply with bread the whole wheat-producing population the year round ; and not only is the direct loss sustained, but another —viz., thick seeding invariably hinders the wheat plant from producing as much : as it would were it not cramped and crowded so closely by its sapping neighbours. Farmers mistake the demands of almost all small grain. Generally they think the more seed, the larger yield, when the very reverse is the case. There are seeds that send up but one stalk and require to be sown thick ; there arc; others, like some of the grasses, that" do better on sod thickly matted; but wheat, oats, rye, and barley show very clearly their repugnance to being sown too'thick by their failure to stool out and make many stalks from one grain. When sown broadcast or with a drill, 30 pounds of good seed per acre should be the maximum all over the country upon all land that is in any way adapted to its growth,—* Exchange. J ; " ■