158 Effective Farming 



93. Cultural methods. A crop of buckwheat will mature 

 in about eight to ten weeks after planting. Being a short- 

 season crop, it is often planted on ground that cannot be made 

 ready for some other stand, or where other crops have been 

 planted and failed. It will grow on many types of soil and will 

 do fairly well on poor soil. For this reason, it is often grown 

 on soil that will not produce other crops profitably. The type 

 best suited to buckwheat, however, is a well drained, fairly 

 moist sandy loam that is not excessively rich ; if the soil is 

 too rich the grain will lodge badly. For the best results, the 

 land should be plowed long enough before seeding to give the 

 soil time to settle and the sods and other organic matter time 

 to start to decay. The land should then be prepared as for 

 cereal crops and a mellow seed-bed secured. 



The acre-rate of seeding varies from two to five pecks. The 

 seed may be broadcasted or drilled ; drilling requires about a peck 

 less seed to the acre and a more uniform stand is likely to result. 



The crop should be cut soon after the first seeds mature and 

 before the first heavy frost. If the cutting is delayed, much 

 grain is likely to be lost by shattering. The implements gen- 

 erally used for cutting buckwheat are either the reaper or the 

 binder with the bundle-tying part removed. On small areas 

 much of the grain is cut with the cradle. The grain is allowed 

 to dry in the swath for a few days and is then bound loosely 

 by hand in bundles that are set up in small shocks and allowed 

 to cure. Either a cloudy day or the early morning hours is 

 the best time to cut and shock buckwheat ; handling it while 

 the grain is somewhat moist prevents excessive shattering. 

 The crop is threshed by means of a regular threshing machine. 



QUESTIONS 



1. Why is winter wheat seeding often delayed until after the first 

 frost? 



2. What are the advantages of seeding wheat with a grain-drill 

 over broadcasting it ? 



