YIELD 



TABLE OF YIELD PER ACRE IN BUSHELS (63 Ibs.) WITH VARYING 

 EAR WEIGHT AND NUMBER OF EARS PER SQUARE YARD 



(100 grains = 4- 1 66 grams). 



429 



The amount of seed which should be sown in order to obtain the most 

 productive return has been settled by experience long ago in most of the 

 wheat-growing regions of the world. 



In this country, as already mentioned, the amount lies between 2 and 

 4 bushels per acre. 



In almost every generation, however, during the last two centuries 

 there have arisen thin-seeding advocates, who recommend the use of very 

 much smaller quantities of seed. Some of them refer to the sowing of 

 2^-3 bushels as " a barbarous system," and give evidence of records of 

 40 bushels per acre after sowing one peck (15-16 Ibs.) or less per acre in 

 drills 8-9 inches apart, the grain in the rows being on an average 4-5 inches 

 asunder. 



From an examination of such cases it is seen that the land is especially 

 suited to the growth of wheat, and is in a high state of fertility and free 

 from weeds, conditions which lead to extensive tillering of the plants. 



Experience has shown that on most of the wheat land in England 

 there is great risk in sowing less than 2 bushels per acre, and although 

 the success of these exceptional examples may lure the farmer to give thin- 

 seeding a trial, the practice is swiftly abandoned, for upon unsuitable soil 

 the experiment is a disastrous and total failure. 



The extraordinary prolificacy of the wheat plant attracted attention in 

 early times. 



Everard in 1692 (Houghton's Husbandry) states that he obtained from 

 single grains sown 10 inches apart, plants which produced 60-80 ears, 

 the largest of which contained 40-60 grains, the best plants yielding over 

 4000 grains. 



Tull in 1731 refers to plants with 40 ears. In 1870 C. H. Shirreff 



