858 Agricultural Gazette of 2^. S.W. [0«?/. 2, 1908, 



Seasonable Notes, 



(iEO. L. SQTTOX, 



Wheat Kxpcriinentalisi:. 



Wheat Exhibits r.t Shows. 



In tlic Southern wheat districts i\\v shuw season is now in full swini;'. A few 

 reuiiirks relative to the classes for wheat will be opportune and relevant. 



The majority of agricultural societies are actuated by a desire to so ai'range 

 their schedules that the pi'izes offered shall have the effect of directly 

 encouraging the ad(ii>tinn of better methods in tlu' diil'erent sections of 

 agrii-ultural [iractice. NN'ith some classes th(> results have been very 

 satisfactory, but in others (|uite as unsatisfactory, c.g.^ the majority of those 

 classes arranged for the encouragement of good farming in the wheat districts. 



The general practice to encourage the best methods in connection with 

 wheat growing is to offer a prize for the best sample (generally a bag) of 

 wheat. Such exliibits have a certain a alue at country shows, more especially 

 when the classes foi' them are open ones and are properly included in the 

 scheflule, but their influence is not in the direction intended. They show the 

 quality of wheat the various districts represented are capable of producing, 

 when it is cleaned under the best conditions, which often include laborious 

 hand-picking, and which is quite in order. The exhibition of a bag of grain 

 should not be hampered V)y any restrictive conditions regarding cleaning or 

 winnowing : the veiy nature of the class, which is a coiiipetition for " the 

 heat bag of w^heat," implies that a miller's sample is required, and as wheat 

 for the mill(>r cannot be cleaned too well, any resti'ictive conditions are out of 

 place, anid the most thorough methods are permissible. At a miller's, or at 

 a metropolitan exhibition, when supplementing a class for growing crops, 

 such classes are of great interest and of considerable educational value, but 

 tlieir influence for the improvement of methods of farming is verv small. 



Tliese classes, rather than encouraging good farming methods, maiidy, 

 though indirectly, encourage the manufacture of superior tyjDes of cleaning 

 and grading machinery, which in its place is a most desirable thing to 

 encourage, but in this instance is not achieving the object aimed at, viz., the 

 encouragement of good farming methods. 



The production of a> 'iww sample depends rather upon the cleaning 

 machinery a farmer possesses than upon his ability to farm well. With 

 good machinery a splendid sample can be produced from a crop grown by 

 iiidiflerent and slovenly methods. 



N\'itli the object of inducing farmers to adopt better methods, at least one 

 society has insisted upon the sample for exhibition being taken directly from 

 the harvesting machinery in the paddock, ami placed undersea! until judging 

 takes place at the annual show. This jiractice, whilst it is an advance upon 

 the usual one, in that it ensun^s samples being taken under field conditions, is 



