One case is recorded in the United States, where fifty-two bearing stems 

 were formed. Cool weather and early seeding increases stooling. Some 

 remarkable stories are recorded as to the number of stools that a single 

 gi'ain will throw out. Pling states that in Northern Africa and Italy, it 

 is not uncommon to find from two hundred to four hundred stalks grow- 

 ing from a single kernel. Humboldt states that in Mexico a single 

 grain will produce from forty to seventy stalks. 



Seed-Bed 



The seed-bed should be made deep, provided the subsoil is not a loose 

 sand or gravel and too near the surface. Owing to the fact that the 

 roots are inclined to grow deep, it is advisable, if the subsoil is compact, 

 even in humid regions where the rainfall is abundant, to use a subsoil 

 plow for the purpose of mellowing the ground, thereby facilitating deep 

 penetration. If the seed-bed is not deep, the roots, owing to their 

 fragile condition, will not penetrate a very compact plow sole, but will 

 spread out, taking the course of least resistance, and in the event of 

 drouth, the plant will die or suffer for lack of moisture on account of 

 their nearness to the surface. 



If the seed-bed is deep and mellow and the sub-stratum is permeable, 

 delicate roots will penetrate into the soil where water is secured and 

 where some plant food is available. The practice of drilling wheat 

 without plowing, while it may prove successful occasionally, as a general 

 rule means a very deficient crop. The writer had an opportunity to 

 observe the two conditions in the west during an extremely dry season. 

 Wheat drilled in corn ground where corn was listed, but not plowed, 

 made a yield of from four and a half to six bushels per acre. In an 

 adjoining locality where the ground was plowed deep, having been 

 disced before it was plowed and subsequently disced, in spite of the pro- 

 tracted drouth that season, made a yield of over thirty bushels per acre, 

 showing the value of a deep, well-made seed-bed. 



In a locality in South Dakota where the ground was plowed shallow, 

 the wheat roots did not penetrate to a sufficient depth to hold the plant, 

 and during a drouth when the wheat was a few inches high, it was com- 

 pletely blown out of the ground by the high wind. Had the same land 

 been plowed deep, the wheat would not have been dislodged by blowing 

 nor would it have perished for lack of moisture, as was evidenced where 

 the deep seed-bed was made in the same section. 



It is a safeguard against the possibility of a drouth to disc the ground 

 before it is plowed in order that all trash may be worked into the seed- 

 bed and the surface lumps pulverized so that when the furrow slice is 

 turned, the contact is compact between the bottom of the furrow and 

 the turned portion of dirt. The discing prevents the formation of air 

 spaces, a condition that materially interferes with the upward movc- 



129 



