24 WHEAT CULTURE. 



CHAPTER V. 



PLANTING OR SOWING WHEAT. 

 TIME TO PLAKT. 



In this matter, as in most others connected with plant 

 life, it is safe to take nature as a guide to a considerable ex- 

 tent. In most cases her ways and habits are the true ones ; 

 and, in the operation of planting our grains, that guide is 

 eminently correct, making due allowances for the changed 

 conditions of artificial sowing. Hence early planting is 

 the correct system, as nature usually plants the seed very 

 soon after it is ripe and ready to fall from the parent 

 plant. This would indicate that wheat should be planted 

 as soon after becoming ripe as the soil can be made ready 

 to receive the seed, after harvest and thrashing. There 

 will be little danger of rust or insects, however early the 

 grain may be sown, if the seed is well soaked in brine 

 and dried in plaster or lime, if the land is well drained 

 and deeply cultivated, and if, furthermore, the crop 

 be liberally dressed with salt, lime, or plaster, in late 

 autumn or early spring. There will, also, be little or no 

 danger of too rank growth, or blasting, or shrinking, if 

 the soil be well pulverized and deeply cultivated, with 

 a fair supply of potash or lime to secure a sufficiency of 

 soluble silica to make sound, healthy straw and chaff. 

 With all the proper, natural conditions, early planting is 

 surely the best from August first to September fifteenth, 

 according to locality. 



On this point Mr. C. E. Thorne, of the Ohio Univer- 

 sity Farm, makes the following report of his experi- 

 ments : 



"A piece of bottom land, about ten rods wide by thirty 

 long, was laid off in five equal strips, each two rods wide, 



