282 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



soils, in fact too (luickly, whereas, this is not the case in loamy 

 or clayey soil. 



I he next thing is seed selection. Those men back there were 

 not only good farmers, but they found that seed selection was 

 necessary. They had those old fanning mills with which they 

 cleaned their wheat. You know what I mean? They did not 

 think of going out into the field and selecting the best plants, but, 

 after threshing their grain and before seeding, they put the 

 wheat over the fanning mill which they ran with an engine. 

 The farmers with whom I made these investigations about ten 

 or twelve years ago did not know about seed selection ; that is, 

 they did not call it seed selection, but they would put their 

 wheat on the fanning mill and every grain which did not weigh 

 a certain amount — that is, the grains that were not of a certain 

 weight, were blown out ; and I have seen about one-third blown 

 out, while the other two-thirds came out of the front of the 

 mill. I asked one of these men to weigh the two kinds of 

 grain — that coming in front of the mill and that under the mill, 

 and we found there was a difference of between six and eight 

 pounds in the weight of a bushel. Of course, only the heavy 

 wheat was sown. This has been done year after year ; no doubt 

 long before I ever came in contact with them. Another thing, 

 they found that certain kinds of wheat were adapted to certain 

 soils. For our sandy upland soil, the Harvest King is the best 

 variety of winter wheat. The Rural New Yorker No. 6 is the 

 variety of wheat that yields best in our limestone soils, al- 

 though the Turkish-Rumanian, a bearded variety, yields about 

 as well. 



These people of my state of Pennsylvania have illustrated, 

 in a practical way, just what has been done, over and over, 

 along scientific lines. 



As I have already said, I do not know whether your soil or 

 your climate are adapted to wheat raising, but it looks to me 

 as if the State of Maine could raise spring wheat and probably 

 winter wheat. Wheat is a crop that contains more food better 

 adapted to nourish and maintain the human body than any 

 other crop we raise. I do not except rice. Eighty-two per 

 cent of wheat is digestible and that is about the digestibility of 

 rice. Wheat contains all the mineral the blood and muscle and 

 energy producing foods needed by the body. For these reasons 



