268 
preferred for fall sowing, and the Canada’ club, goose, and tea for spring grai, 
The May and Walker are preferred for their early ripening qualities and freedowe 
from rust, while the Mediterranean is thought to stand the winter better anve 
realize a safer crop. Our Cole reporter says : 
The red chaff is generally cultivated, sometimes discarded for a season or two, but sure 
to be reinstated, because it is the surest crop, and its yield as good as that of other varieties. 
White wheat is the favorite on the uplands. Zimmerman wheat is grown on the rich lands 
where other varieties would lodge and fall down. It has short and hard straw, and brings 
the best price in market, yielding a very white flour and having but a thin shell. The 
Mediterranean is disliked on account of its beards and poor quality, but as to quantity it is 
good 
In some localities the blue-stem is preferred as best adapted to prairie soil- 
The Tappahannock is popular so far as yet introduced, being earlier and yield- 
ing better flour than most other varieties. In Madison county the white rock 
wheat is generally preferred, because of its greater yield, and excellent flour. 
But a small proportion of the crop is spring wheat, though in a few of the 
northern counties it is given the preference, winter varieties being liable to freez- 
ing out in cold winters. 
Fall wheat is generally put in the ground during the months of September 
and Octdber, and the spring varieties in Mareh and April; harvesting commences 
about the middle of June in the lower part of the State, extending to the mid- 
dle of July, some of the spring sown grain not ripening until August. In a 
majority of counties there is very little drilling, in many none at all, and no 
county reports more than one-half. In most localities where tried the drilling 
system is considered superior to the old mode, and is gradually being adopted. 
A correspondent says: 
Wheat is largely cultivated, but generally badly managed; some, however, have used the 
drill to good purpose, and produced from 2U to 25 bushels to the acre. 
Missouri wheat culture is no exception to the general system of the west— 
the largest possible crops upon the least amount of labor—almost everything 
left to nature beyond the dropping of the seed. A correspondent writes : 
The careful and scientific culture of wheat is not practiced in this county ; no drills and 
but few rollers. Wheat generally sown among the growing corn and ‘‘ scratched in” with 
bull-tongue plough. The only wonder is that we harvest any crop from such culture; 
yet from 10 to 25 bushels are generally realized. 
Another reporter says : 
The mode of culture is rather primitive in most cases, the seed being sown broadcast and 
covered with a shovel or triangular plough; afew plough the ground and harrow in the grain. 
Some plough stubble ground twice, sow broadcast, and harrow twice. Fallow 
ground is usually ploughed but once. Our Madison reporter says: 
The soil is generally broken about four inches in August or September. 
In Iron county the general culture is breaking the soil, sowing, and harrow- 
ing or brushing in; in dry seasons sown among the corn and ploughedin. ‘The 
average yield of wheat per acre in Missouri in 1866 was 163 bushels; and in 
1867 about 124 bushels. 
6. The wild prairie grasses, blue-joint, June grass, rye grass, white clover, 
sage, and swamp grasses, furnish the natural pastures of Missouri, the native 
prairie grass being generally superseded by blue grass, which appears in all see- 
tions of the State where the prairies are pastured freely. Timothy, orchard grass, 
red-top, and red clover are the principal cultivated grasses, but the prairies are 
the chief reliance for the subsistence of stock during the pasturing season, which 
is reported as ranging from 6 to 11 months in length in the several counties, the 
average in the State being about eight months, during which stock can do well 
upon pasture alone, though a number of counties name nine months, and Pike 
runs up to eleven months. Our Chariton reporter writes upon this subject as 
follows: 
Bluegrass mixed with white clover in our pastures and commons, and on our prairies a 
luxuriant growth of prairie grass mixed with blue grass around farms. In some seasons 
