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tbau hand-sowing. Some prefer plowing in. For dry soils preference 

 is expressed here, as elsewhere, for the drill. Our correspondent in 

 Jasper, from a long experience, gives ten per cent, preference to the 

 drill. In Tama the seeder is used, but fall plowing of corn-land gives 

 better results than spring plowing. In Marion, '' drilled wheat has 

 stouter growth of stem, it tillers better, the roots reaching moisture." 

 Our Hancock observer thinks he could grow winter- wheat with drill- 

 culture. In Leavenworth, Kansas, the reporter thinks the practice of 

 drilling promotes better culture, as the ground must be in good order 

 to use the drill adv^antageously. The importance of drilling, as a pre- 

 ventive of the effects ot drought, are enforced repeatedly by Kansas 

 correspondents. The light soils of Nebraska are deemed well suited ot 

 drill-culture. The following extracts illustrate some of the main points 

 in seeding : 



Mercer, III. — Owiug to the fact that nearly all our spriuj:;:-wbeat is sown broadcast upon 

 ground previously occupied by corn, and upon which a drill could not work, many drills 

 were introduced and thorouc^hly tried several years since. All are now thrown aside to rot 

 in fence-corners. I have known but one piece to be drilled in fifteen years, and the party 

 doing it has not repeated the experiment. It is so seldom that they can be used, either 

 for profit or convenience, that it does not pay to keep the machine. The time may be ap- 

 proaching when we shall adopt summer-fallowing and winter-wheat, and with it the drill ; 

 but while we have the cattle of the West to stall-feed, we shall raise wheat only to prepare 

 our ground for grass. 



Steel, Minn. — Formerly all spring-wheat was sown broadcast. The best farmers now have 

 changed to a great degree their practice. . If the ground is in good working condition and 

 clean, there is a general concurrence that drilling is best. Some use a broadcast machine, 

 because they can hurry in the early spring, and put the grain in before the ground is dry, 

 even before the frost is out but a few inches. The only other objection to drilling that is 

 much urged, is that it gives the weeds a much better chance to start and grow between the 

 drills of six inches than if the seed be evenly scattered. This, it is acknowledged, is only 

 occasionally the case, as in the season of 1871, when there was a hot, dry time in May and 

 June, and even then weeds were perhaps as vigorous and numerous in the broadcast sowing. 

 These are the objections I hear urged, but the opinion is prevalent that the.se statements are 

 at least but partially true, and that the deeper covering of the seed, and the less seed neces- 

 sary, are both positive advantages ; and, further, the great test that drilled seed, on the 

 whole, produces the best crop. Some farmers think that the drills only four instead of six 

 inches apart would give better results. 



Hardin, loica. — I have followed both drills and broadcast seeders over hundreds of acres 

 for the sole purpose of observing which did the best work. I find that when the soil is just 

 right as to moisture, the drill covers best, hardly a dozen grains remaining uncovered to a 

 square rod ; but if the soil is rather wet it icill nut fall back properly so as to entirely cover 

 the seed deposited in the bottom of the furrow, and, if the ground is foul with roots, weeds, 

 or stubble, poorly turned under, and rather too wet, the points of the drill-teeth clog badly. 

 Most good farmers will say you must not sow your seed then when the soil is too wet, 

 which is very true in most soils, especially clay or clayey ; but every one hereabouts who 

 has tried it, has found that when the time comes for sowing, the condition of the soil as to 

 moisture, at least as to being too wet, is of little consequence, so that time seems to be the 

 " essence of the contract" more, than condition of soil. 



I first observed this in the spring of 1867. I went twice across a field (eighty rods) with a 

 broadcast seeding-machine, making a strip one rod wide, or just half an acre. The ground 

 was so wet that the horses sunk to their fetlocks at every step, and seemingly one-fourth 

 of the grain remained uncovered, as the soil worked up by the seeder-teeth appeared more 

 in the condition of mortar than like a proper seed-bed. So I quit for two days, until the .sun 

 and wind had dried out the land properly, when I resumed work with the same machine, 

 same seed, and same rate of seed per acre, and finished the field of forty acres in the same 

 way. None of the land was harrowed after the sowing. The strip first sown came up first, 

 looked better, and kept ahead all through the season, sliowing a plain difl:erence at a distance 

 of one hundred rods, so much so as to attract the attention of almost every one who passed. 

 Thinking that I had discovered something, I harvested the first-sown strip separate, and 

 another strip of the same size also separate. The result was, the first-sown strip, half an 

 acre, yielded eleven bushels, and the other strip nine bushels. Another farmer, living 

 about three miles from me, made the same discovery the same season; and every one who 

 Las fi-ied the plan, to " put in their wheat in time," as they call it, without reference to the 

 condition of the soil, even when hardly thawed enough to cover the seed, has confirmed the 

 wisdom of the practice. 



Labette, Kansas: We have harvested but six crops from our broad, uufenced fields ot 



