1854. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



420 



now think better of it %Yhen tliey can make £5 to 

 £6 per acre by so doing. 



It is certainly a curious contrast which is pre- 

 sented by tlio two points we have been discussing. 

 On one si<le, British India is exporting £300,000 

 worth of ilasseed, and throwing away £500,Q00 

 of fibre; on the other, Ireland is raising to the 

 value of the 2,000,000 of flax fibre, and rotting in 

 the steep- pools £500,000 worth of seed ! It_ is 

 Russia alone that has been benefiting by the ig- 

 norance of the Hindoo ryot and the prejudices 

 and carelessness of the Irish farmer. No particle 

 of the valuable plant is allowed by her nobles to 

 waste. She sells us to the value of £3,000,000 of 

 fibre, and £1)00,000 of seed each year, and does 

 not even take' our manufactures in return. The 

 Hindoo Ijurns the fibre, and the Ulsterman rots 

 the seed, which, turned into money, would buy 

 our manufactured goods, and largely help to free 

 us from reliance on a State whose political sys- 

 tem must frequently lead to a crisis like the pres- 

 ent, and whose commercial policy must ever de- 

 prive us of half the benefits of international trade. 

 — Belfast (England) Mercury. 



For the Neiv England Farmer. 



WINTER WHEAT. 

 Mr. Editor : — The farmers of New England 

 cannot Imt be gratified — particularly the readers 

 of your papLT — that you are an advocate for 

 growing wheat. 



Your two last issues contain wholesome and 

 timely advice to farmers. The admonitions of the 

 past year will long be remembered, as connected 

 with the price of a ])arrel of flour. The pockets 

 of those wdiose boundeu duty it is to produce the 

 barrel of flour, in man}' instances, has been drained 

 to their last pocket-piece. Is there any other way 

 to restore this spent capital, than to move at 

 once under your advice? If our "ancestors 

 crowned their wheat-sheaves with flowers, and 

 sung and danced," — let us of the present day, 

 weave a garland of flowers for the sheaves, and 

 erect a triumphal arch bearing the inscription, — 

 "Our primitive farmers were wheat growers ; ivc 

 will emulate their example in this age of improve- 

 ment." Finally, your statistics of wheat growing 

 in the Old World, are of much interest ; we hope 

 they will not escape the eye of our agriculturists. 

 Cultivation has brouglit up the wheat crops in 

 England and Ireland ; it is ))ut a few years since, 

 that they did not average a larger crop than our 

 Western States, which now altogether do not pro- 

 duce in the aggregate, fifteen bushels to the acre 

 for a scries of years'. New England would not 

 compound at this rate. Tliere is any quantity of 

 land in New England that will produce as much 

 wheat as in Old England, with the same appli- 

 ances and mode of cultivation. A plenty of man- 

 ure — ashes, bone-dust, (as to lime, not as a fertil- 

 izer but as a moistener, when under the surface, 

 it may liave its fitting effect,) and you are pretty 

 sure of a crop. 



Samuel FnoTniNGnAM, Jr., Esq.,of Milton Hill, 

 raised an immense crop of winter wheat. He used 

 freely pig manure turned under gi-eensward. He 

 lost a portion of it from its overgrown weight and 

 succulence, it being bimt down in a shower and 

 was too heavy to ris'- again. I think his yield 

 was fifty bushels to the acre. 



My own experience — so often told — and per- 

 haps, so little heeded. I will once more venture to 

 mention. My first year's experience was to plow 

 an old piece of mowing land, IJ acres. T sowed 

 three bushels of wheat and harrowed in with it 

 six casks of slaked lime. It yielded forty-seven 

 bushels of wheat. I used no manure, it being 

 simply an experiment. I continued to raise wheat 

 six years ; the fourth' year it mildewed ; my aver- 

 age yield for the whole time was twenty-five bush- 

 els to the acre. I doubted the necessity of using 

 lime, and sowed spent ashes on the grain ear- 

 ly in spring. Yet I Avould not oppose ttie use oi' 

 lime. 



My soil was what may be termed a good grass 

 land, clay substratum ; wet land will not mature 

 wheat, neither will it winter rye. Dry, descend- 

 ing lands are better for this crop. A pasture, an 

 old mowing field, or a clover crop plowed in, and 

 all the manure you can turn in is all the better : 

 you may lay down to grass at wheat sowing. 



During the present season it has occurred to me 

 that "winter-kill" is the great object to guard 

 against. My friend Taber, of Vassalboro', has 

 written me, that this is the discouraging feature 

 in Maine. We know that many farmers are of 

 opinion that if the wheat is sown any time before 

 "snow flies," it is early enough. In October, per- 

 haps, with land cold, no manure, so clayey, that 

 the harrow hardly makes an impression, the grain 

 is scarcely up ; the ground closes, and there is 

 hardly a show of l)ladeor root; spring opens, the 

 ground thaws and freezes alternately, and the lit- 

 tle furzy grain is all thrown out a perfectly dead 

 substance. Is there not too much of this kind of 

 farming among our Eastern friends? Not so with 

 my worthy friend at Vassalboro'. He takes a high 

 rank. 



But "winter-kill" is to be guarded against. 1 

 have been trying experiments in my garden; to 

 wit : have planted wheat, (Spring and W inter vari- 

 eties) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and inches deep, exact meas- 

 ure ; it may astonish the reader to learn, that it 

 has come up at a depth of six inches, in a light, 

 rich soil. 1 planted a single berry in a place ; the 

 Winter variety at one inch, had seven stalks to 

 the kernel; 2, 3, and 4 inches, six stalks each to 

 the kernel ; 5 and G, thret» stalks each to the ker- 

 nel. So that deep planting would require double 

 the seed and would not be safe to adopt. 



To test the experiment was my olyect, and I 

 liave planted at three Sfveral times ; at one plant- 

 ing, it did not come up at six inches. 



Now to avoid "winter-kill," sow early in Sep- 

 tember, froni 1st to 10th; 2>low in 3 inches deep, if 

 mellow soil 4 inches. This gives depth of root, 

 and an advanced Idade (which thawing or freezing 

 will not throw out) and amounts to a large gain 

 in early maturing the crop for the next season. 

 Would not this lie a fair conclusion ? 



The early fall growth is of the greatest impor- 

 tance. The horse-plow cannot be used for a bet- 

 ter purpose, even if the farmer is in a h\irry and 

 thinks it is time lost. 



The Michigan or double eagle plow, will so 

 leave the sod furrow as to make it easy to cover 

 three inches deep. A loaded cultivator might be 

 sufficient. 



Always plow deep ; vcgetaljlc roots strike 

 deep. 

 Many of your formers have raised wheat in 



