134 One Thousand Questions in Agriculture 



Buckwheat Growing. 



Tzvo or three farmers in this locality desire to plant biickzvheat. Not 

 having done so heretofore they are in doubt as to the soil and other 

 conditions that go to make a successful crop. 



The growing of buckwheat in California is an exceedingly small 

 afifair. The local market is very limited, as most California hot 

 cakes are made of wheat fiour. There is no chance for outward 

 shipment, and the crop itself, being capable of growing only during 

 the frostless season, has to be planted on moist lands where there 

 is not only abundant summer moisture but an air somewhat humid. 

 Irrigated uplands, even in the frostless season, are hardly suitable 

 for the common buckwheat, although they may give the growth of 

 Japanese buckwheat for beekeepers who use dark honey for bee 

 feeding. The Japanese buckwheat is well suited for this because it 

 keeps blooming and produces a scattered crop of seed, but this 

 characteristic makes it less suitable for a grain crop, and it has 

 therefore never become very popular in this State. We consider 

 buckwheat as not worthy of much consideration by California farmers. 



Variation in Russian Sunflowers. 



In an acre of mammoth Russian sunflowers there seems to he threA 

 varieties; some of the plants bear but one large floiver; others bear a 

 flower at the top ivith many other smaller ones circling it, while others have 

 long stalks just above the leaf stems from the ground level all the way 

 up to the largest flozver, which appears at the very top. Are all these 

 varieties true mammoth Russian sunflowers? What explanation is there 

 for these variations? Will the seed from the variety carrying hut one 

 natural head produce seed that zvill reproduce true to the parent? 



Your sunflowers are probably only playing the pranks their 

 grandfathers enjoyed. If seed is gathered indiscriminately from all 

 the heads which appear in the crop, succeeding generations will keep 

 reverting until they return to the wild type, or something near it. 

 If there is a clear idea of what is the best type (one great head or 

 several heads, placed in a certain way) and seed is continually taken 

 from such plants only for planting, more and more plants will be 

 of this kind until the type becomes fixed and reversions will only 

 rarely appear. No seed should be kept for planting without selecting 

 it from what you consider the best type of plant; no field should 

 be grown for commercial seed without rogue-ing out the plants 

 which show reversions or bad variations. If you find sunflowers profitable 

 as a crop in your locality, rigid selection of seed should be practiced by 

 all growers, after careful comparison of views and a decision as to the 

 best characters to select for. 



Sacaline. 



My attention has been brought to a plant called Sacaline by an East- 

 ern plant dealer. He states that this plant zvill grozu in any kind of soil 

 and needs practically no water. 



