Buckwheat, 



273 



The unthreshed crop is not often stored in barns or stacked but is 

 threshed direct from the field. Formerly much of the threshing was done 

 with the hand flail, in which case it is necessary that the work be per- 

 formed on a dry, airy day so that the grain will shell easily. If threshed 

 by machinery, neither crop nor day need be so dry. It is usual to remove 

 from the thresher the spiked concave and put in its place a smooth one, 

 or a suitable piece of hardwood plank. This is to avoid cracking the 

 grain and unnecessarily breaking the straw. The pedicels bearing the 

 seeds are slender, and these as well as the straw, when dry, are brittle so 

 that the grain threshes much easier than the cereals. 



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Fig. 99. — Buckwheat in the stook. A plat on the Cornell Station grounds. 



Rotation. — Buckwheat usually has no definite place in the rotation of 

 crops. This is chiefly due to its being used as a substitute for meadow or 

 spring-planted crops that have failed. The poorer lands and the left-over 

 fields are usually sown to buckwheat. While buckwheat seems not to be 

 materially affected by the crop that precedes it, on the other hand it is 

 reported to affect unfavorably certain crops when they follow it. Oats 

 and corn are said by many to be less successful after buckwheat than after 

 other crops. That this is so has not been established by any experiment 

 station. Buckwheat leaves the soil in a peculiarly mellow, ashy condition. 

 In the case of rather heavy soils on which it is desired to grow potatoes, 

 18 



