ol. XXIII, Second Series. 



ROCHESTER, N. Y, SEPTEMBER, 1862. 



No. 9. 



SOWING WHEAT. 



The chief labor on many farms this month will 

 e sowing wheat. 



A gentleman of this city, who takes delight in 

 saggerated pictures of the evils resulting from the 

 r ar, remarked that "farmers felt so uncertain about 

 le future that they were not going to sow any 

 heat this fall!" So far from this being the case, 

 e believe that more wheat will be sown in this 

 jction than for many years past. The midge, 

 hich made such fearful havoc in our wheat fields 

 i 1856-7-8-9 and '60, has done comparatively 

 ttle damage for the last two harvests, and farmers 

 •e beginning to believe that we shall again be able 

 > raise white wheat of as good quality as in days 

 f yore. 



In the February number of the Genesee Farmer 

 ir 1857, will be found a long article headed, 

 Shall we have to abandon Wheat Growing in 

 Western New York ?" At that time many farmers 

 lought that we must give up wheat culture. We 

 >ok the opposite ground and contended that there 

 as no necessity for such a course. At two con- 

 cutive meetings of the Farmers' Club of Monroe 

 ounty the subject discussed was, " What substi- 

 ites for the wheat crop can be adopted with the 

 ost profit in this county ?" We expressed the 

 3inion that we could still raise wheat ; that the 

 lidge was no new thing ; that it had, at times, 

 nnmitted great ravages in other countries, but 

 ad been overcome, and that we too could, by 

 •operly cultivating and enriching the soil, sowing 

 irly, and of early varieties, soon lessen the ravages 

 I the midge and be able in a few years to raise as 

 :>od wheat as ever. Our prediction has come true, 

 he midge has not disappeared, but we have been 

 labled to get crops sufficiently early to escape 

 later ial injury. 



A day or two since we were on the farm of John 

 ohnston, of Geneva, N. Y., the noble old farmer 

 f underdraining celebrity. He remarked : " The 



midge never did me much damage." For thirty 

 years he has fed out large quantities of oil cake, 

 corn, &c, to cattle and sheep on his farm. He has 

 used more or less lime and any quantity of plaster. 

 He has raised immense crops of clover and made it 

 into hay and fed it out to sheep. In this way 

 be has made his land rich. At the same time he 

 has tile-drained every field on the farm, or we 

 might say every rod. He has laid over fifty miles 

 of underdraining tile ! His land is dry, rich and 

 well cultivated, and " the midge never did him 

 much damage." No wonder that he is the great 

 American apostle of High Farming. 



The midge has taught us a great lesson — one 

 which could not have been taught us so effectually 

 in any other way — we m.ust farm letter. We must 

 sow less land with grain ; raise more clover ; keep 

 more stock ; make more and richer manure. What 

 land we sow to wheat must be well prepared and 

 the seed put in early. It has taught us that it is 

 much better to raise a thousand bushels of wheat 

 from thirty acres than from sixty. We have 

 learned that if the midge takes five bushels of 

 wheat from a field that would yield 35 bushels t© 

 the acre, the loss is less than if it takes the same 

 quantity from a crop that would yield only 15 

 bushels per acre. The proportion of loss is much 

 greater in the one case than in the other. In the 

 one case, for every hundred bushels we obtain, 50 

 bushels has been destroyed by the midge ; in the 

 other, only 16 bushels. And this is assuming that 

 the midge does as much damage on the good land 

 as on the poor, which is by no means the case. 

 Our motto must be, " sow only as much land to 

 wheat as can be made rich and put in early and in 

 good condition." This is what we have advocated 

 for years, and experieuce has demonstrated its 

 correctness. 



On heavy land, we have not yet been able to 

 dispense with summer-fallowing. John Johnston, 

 rich as he has made his land, is yet in the habit of 



