SEED WHEAT.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 2936, 9 May 1891, Page 4

SEED WHEAT.

Tin; "cncral opinion is that seed should 1)0 of the best, both as toshapo ami weight, but this view is controverted by a grower whom the American Miller states is " an authority." This iiiw.il says :—" I take the wheat from the best half-acre and run it through the fanning mill in such a way as to take out merely the screenings—the very small and badly shrunken grains. In most seasons these would amount to one bushel out of from twenty to forty. All grains of fair size are left in the seed. Perhaps you ask, Why not grade Uie wheat from the best half-acre ? Well, which heads contain the kir'est grains—the small ones with n few kernels, or the ones that bad twice as many ? I have thought for some years that tho former did, and I do not care to plant them to the exclusion of others. Jf it were prac I ictil to select the best heads from the best half-acre, and then the best berries from them, I would like to do so, but as far as my present knowledge goes, I do not care to grade my seed from tho best of the field, except to take out the very poorest. I have not jumped at this conclusion as a matter of theory, for ic is the result of a good deal of observation, and still I presume that nine farmers out of ten who go out to buy seed wheat would select line, plump grain from a field which had yielded twenty or twenty-live bushels per acre, rather than an inferior-locking article somewhat smaller, and perhaps ii little shrunken, from a field which they knew had yielded thirty live or forty bushels per acre.''