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^^ERiCAN HERD-BOO^- 



DEVOTED TO 

 AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AND RURAL AND DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. 



Perfect Agriculture is the true foundation of all trade and industry. — Liebio. 



Vol. IX — No. 4.] 



11th mo. (November) 15th, 1814. 



[Whole No. 118. 



PUBLISHED MONlfttY, 



BY J O S I A H T A T U M, 



EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR, 



No. 50 North Fourth Street, 

 PHILADELPHIA. 



Price one dollar per year. — For conditions see last page. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Broadcast and Drilled Wheat. 



To THE Editor, — At the present period, 

 when the price of agricultural produce of 

 ever}' description is so reduced, it becomes 

 of great importance to the farmer to look 

 around and see whether he can not increase 

 the produce of his soil without increasing 

 his expenses. 



This is particularly needful in raising 

 wheat; from some causes, perhaps not well 

 nnderstood, the wheat crop has become in 

 the Eastern or Atlantic States exceedingly 

 precarious. Our wheat, even when not at- 

 tacjied by enemies, such as rust or fly, has 

 been gradually diminishing in the amount 

 raised to the acre : the Report of the Farm- 

 ers' Club of New York, states that the quan- 

 tity has decreased there from 30 to 10 or 15 

 bushels per acre. This diminution is proba- 

 bly owing to the land being gradually robbed 

 of the chemical constituents of the wheat, 

 by sending the grain away, while we retain 



Cab-^Vol. IX.— No. 4. 



ithe straw to make food to supply succeeding 

 'crops; hence if we put on enough of this 

 I kind of manure, we may raise large crops 

 jof straw, but not grain in proportion. And 

 further, as if we thought we had yet too 

 nuich grain, we have our manure yards so 

 planned that the saline parts, which are the 

 most important in the formation of tlie grain, 

 .and which are soluble in water, have every 

 'facility to enable them to be washed away 

 by repeated showers. 



But is our present method of planting or 

 sowing wheat, the most likely to insure the 

 largest yield? This is what I now wish to 

 speak of. In the work of Jethro Tull, the 

 father of thorough tillage, printed about one 

 hundred years ago, he states, that while 

 other farmers were sowing two and three 

 bushels of wheat to the acre, and reaping 

 only 15 or 20 bushels, he drilled about half 

 a bushel in three rows, about eight inches 

 apart, in the middle of six feet wide lands, 

 and usually obtained about 40 or 50 bushels 

 per acre; and this without the aid of much 

 or any manure: this success he attributed 

 to tilling the land v^hile the wheat was 

 growing; he turned the furrow with what 

 he called his hoc-plough, alternately from 

 and to the rows of wheat, like many who 

 use the plough are in the habit of tilling 

 their corn ; in the spaces of eight inches 

 between the rows, the ground was loosened 

 by hand hoeing. 



This plan, though not adapted to Ameri- 

 can farming, lor the reason, that generally 



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