No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICTTLTURE. 3<M> 



DEMONSTRATIONS IN WHEuAT RAISING IN YORK COUNTY. 



BY Prop. Franklin Menges, York, Pa. 



These demonstrations were undertaken by the writer at the 

 request of Hon. A. L. Martin to show that by careful and early plow- 

 ing frequent cultivation between plowing and seeding time and the 

 application of stable manure and the careful selection of seed year 

 after year the yields of what may have been termed at the beginning 

 of the demonstrations larger yielding wheats, can be still further 

 increased. These varieties have been under observation indirectly 

 for at least four years and in that time have yielded anywhere from 

 25 to 40 bushels per acre field yields. These wheats have been 

 observed, not as much as might have been desired, in rich and poor 

 soils and under good and poor cultivation but always with carefully 

 selected seed. Let me place special emphasis on the fact that these 

 observations were made with farmers who live on their farms and 

 own them and farm them and that no observations were made on 

 rented farms. This is not said in disparagement of tenant farmers 

 or farming. 



The farmers whose operations were under observation are not 

 doing any fancy farming, but they are good plowers and cultivators 

 and careful in the selection of seed. The wheat was not raised on 

 experimental plots, but was produced in fields varying in size from 

 six to forty acres. The manure of these farmers is not allowed to 

 rot away in the barnyard, while it is not applied directly from the 

 stable to growing crops as it should be, it is applied three and four 

 times a year and in some instances more frequently so that there is 

 little loss. 



These farmers with one or two exceptions follow the four or five 

 years rotation of grass and corn, and either wheat in the corn 

 stubble in the fall, or oats in the spring, followed in both cases with 

 wheat the following fall, with sometimes a second crop of wheat 

 where a crop of oats was raised, but usually grass seed is sown with 

 the wheat that is sown after the oats and always with the wheat 

 sown after the crop raised on corn stubble. In every one of the dem- 

 onstrations here given grass seed was sown with the wheat, the 

 timothy in the fall and clover in the spring. Not that we approve 

 of this method, but it is the normal way of sowing grass seed and 

 only normal conditions were under observation. 



The Department of Farmers' Institutes of the State recognize 

 that the yield of wheat per acre in Pennsylvania is too low to induce 

 the farmers to continue raising it, as a fairly good paying crop, 

 while at the same time the department sees that wheat is more and 

 more becoming the food of all humanity as civilization advances, and 

 that it must be raised. The average yield in the State of Pennsyl- 

 vania in 1906 was 17.7 bushels per acre worth $15.93 at 90 cents a 

 bushel, which is considerable more than the average prices paid 

 throughout the State. 



The farmers whose methods have been under observation previous 

 to the demonstrations and with whom the demonstrations were 

 finMlj made are: William Diet?, HellmE^iij York county. Pa.; William 



