WHEN TO OUT WHEAT.

Southland Times, Issue 866, 16 December 1867, Page 3

WHEN TO OUT WHEAT.

(From the Elgin Gazette.) As the harvest is now rapidly becoming general all over the country it is as ••well to remind both farmers and millers that now is the time for continuing the experiments which have been made at different dates for deciding upon the best period for cutting wheat. The opinions current in the agricultural world are still so contradictory that nothing but a frequent repetition of these experiments will settle the matter. The subject was first publicly mooted in the " Quarterly Journal of Agriculture" for June, 1841, "by Mr Hannam, an eminent Yorkshire agriculturist, who asserted most positively that wheat cut when thoroughly xipe is both less in weight and inferior in quality to that which is cut a week or even a fortnight before, thorough maturity. His first experiments were made in 1840, when he took three separate samples of wheat to market and found that the grain cut on August 4, when still "green," fetched 6Js and that cut on September 1, quite ripe, fetched only 625. In 1841 he instituted more extensive experiments, and the judges at the following agricultural show at "Wetherby awarded an extra premium to the wheat which had been cut a fortnight before it was thoroughly ripe, atfd the price it fetched in the market fully bore out the decision. He then had samples of the vai'ious kinds of wheat ground and dressed by a careful jniller, and found that the produce of half a rood cut on August 26, while " raw," yielded 15st. 101 b. of grain ; that a similar produce, cut on August 30, yielded 16st. 61b. ; and that cut on September 9, ripe, yielded only 14st. 131 b .; while the weights of the grain per bushel were respectively 62 6-71 b., 62 22-591 b., and 59 5-71 b. Further, 1001 b. weight of various samples of the grain yieHed in flour 80 40-43 1 b., 17 8-221 b., 72 19-201 b., respectively. The advantages of the early cutting were, in fact, in every way surprising. There was a gain of above 15 per cent, in weight of flour upon equal measures of grain, and nearly 8 per cent, of flour upon equal weights of wheat in favor of the earlier cutting. The theory upon which the results are explained is this, that as the sugar in the green plant becomes changed into the starch of the grain, so if permitted to remain till fully ripe another change takes place, the starch being gradually converted into woody fibre j it being a well-known chemical fact that sugar, starch, and fibre, are composed of the same constituent elements. Mr Hannam also claimed a better quality for the raw-cut grain, Professor Johnston having analyzed the several samples, and found 9.9 per cent, of gluten in the raw wheat, as against 9i6 per cent, in the ripe. Another eminent Derbyshire agriculturist, Mr Pletcher, published the results of similar experiments in 1844, showing that the raw-cut grain brought him £1 10s 9d per acre above the produce per acre of that which was reaped when it was lipePourteen days before ripeness was the period at which he fixed the time for reaping, so as to secure the largest yield and the finest flour.