408 Wheat Culture. [September, 



WHEAT CULTURE. 



Dear Cincinnatus. — Too much light can hardly be thrown upon 

 the cultivation of this important cereal. The best variety of white 

 wheat I have found is the " White Perk." I obtained the seed from 

 Christopher Wardell of Cheviot. It was pretty badly infected with 

 smut, but believing that smut will not grow I sowed it just as I got 

 it. From this seed I reaped the finest wheat I had ever seen but 

 there was among it abundance of smut. I was fully satisfied that 

 the smut had gained upon the crop, it making much greater show 

 then than it did in the seed. I was exceedingly pleased wjih every 

 phase of the " White Perk" except the smut. I therefore set myself 

 to work to find a remedy ; so in the fall of '56 I carefully washed 

 all my seed wheat, and while wet I dried it with quick lime and 

 sowed immediately ; my crop, came in last harvest most beautifully 

 and so clear of smut that only two smut grains have been found 

 after minute examination, in a crop of some eighty odd bushels. 



Two of my neighbors had seed of me. One got wheat which I 

 had washed for mill. He sowed it without further preparation ; his 

 wheat was very fine, and he professes himself well satisfied with his 

 crop, but it was by no means clear of smut. 



The other sowed his seed just from the barn floor, without either 

 water or lime, and he is quite disgusted with the Perky wheat, be- 

 lieves it all a humbug, and says it was half smut. 



From these three experiments we might infer that smut is an 

 infectious disease in wheat, that water helps some, but lime effects a 

 cure. I ought not to omit to say that these sowings were compar- 

 atively early ; but mine I believe was the earliest of the three, be- 

 ing before the middle of September ; the latest about the first 

 half of October, if I rightly remember. It is also a remarkable 

 fact that the last sowed fared the worst in regard to smut. 



The same fall (1855) one of my friends sowed nearly a half- 

 bushel of this same wheat, which he salted and limed very heavily 

 but without washing: (i. e. removing the smut grains by water). 

 He sowed extremely late — ^just before winter — his wheat was also 

 badly smutted, and he is highly dissatisfied with his wheat — thinks 

 it all a humbug. From this it is manifest that early sowing must 

 also be a condition of cure of this infection. 



I have now on this farm (Walnut Tree Farm), four experiments 

 iu the culture of wheat. Some 75 years ago smut made its first 



