.12 The Bulletin. 



Wheat. 



Wheat is rapidly gaining in importance as a staple crop in North 

 Carolina. We have most excellent wheat lands in the State, but on 

 account of the low prices of all farm products, until comparatively re- 

 cently, the wheat crop has not been pushed cotton having largely taken 

 its place even on our best wheat lands. 



We can grow wheat and in large amounts. Every man remembers, 

 when a school boy, to have had his especial attention called to California 

 on account of its phenomenal yield of wheat, sometimes as high as 50 

 bushels to the acre having been reported. It is interesting to note that 

 while the wheat crop of California has always been good, the average 

 yield in that State has frequently fallen below the average yield in 

 North Carolina. There have been as large yields of wheat obtained in 

 this as, perhaps, almost any state in the Union— not yields from indi- 

 vidual acres, but from whole farms. There is a large farm in Halifax 

 County on which there was grown last year an average of 28^ bushels 

 to the acre on a 140-acre field. In Johnston County a gentleman grew 

 an average of 42 bushels to the acre on a 50-acre field, with individual 

 acres yielding as high as 50 bushels. In Kandolph County a gentleman 

 grew an average of 27 bushels per acre on a 40-acre field. In David- 

 son County a farmer grew an average of over 30 bushels per acre on a 

 130-acre tract. But we need not multiply examples. Suffice it to say 

 that these yields were gotten by the practice of common-sense methods 

 on lands adapted by nature, or by preparation, to the growth of wheat. 

 These yields may be duplicated by any farmer who has good heavy clay 

 loam or silt loam soil and is willing to treat it properly. 



The wheat crop in North Carolina in 1909 was 3,827,000 bushels; in 

 1910, 6,817,000 bushels; in 1911, 6,636,000 bushels; in 1912, 5,322,000 

 bushels; and, in 1913, 7,078,000 bushels. 



TAiiLE No. 3.—8hounng Rank of North Carolina in Wheat Pro- 

 duction in 1913 as Compared with Other States* 



Bushels. 



North Carolina 7,078,000 



New York 6,800,000 



Utah 6,420,000 



California 4,200,000 



Wisconsin 3,665,000 



West Virginia 3,055,000 



Wyoming 2,250,000 



Georgia 1,708,000 



Delaware 1,638,000 



New Jersey 1,408,000 



Arkansas 1,313,000 



New Mexico 1,221,000 



Nevada 1,081,000 



South Carolina 972,000 



Arizona 928,000 



Alabama 374,000 



Maine .\ 76,000 



Vermont 24,000 



Mississippi 14,000 



•Taken from United States Year Book for 1913. 



