18%. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



249 



WHEAT— GOOD SEED. 



I've seen the largest seeds, tho' rear'd with care 

 Degenerate, unless the industrious hand 

 Did yearly cull the largest. Thus all things 

 By fatal doom, grow worse, and by degrees, 

 Decay, forced back into their primevous state. 



VirgiU 



Too many of us are apt to think that we pos- 

 sess a sufficient amount of knowledge in the busi- 

 ness we pursue, in and of ourselves, without re- 

 ference to the almost infinite mass of mind around 

 us, or that ceaseless research and activity that has 

 existed before we came upon the stage of being, 

 and which is now constantly affecting us. 



It is true that great progress has been made in 

 the art of cultivating the soil, and especially in 

 regard to the labor-saving machinery and imple- 

 ments that have been introduced, and which have 

 proved of the utmost efficiency. Improvements 

 have also been made in many other directions, — 

 in buildings, stock, &c, and in the introduction 

 of new and valuable vegetables and fruits. There 

 are several important rules, however, well under 

 stood by the ancients, and observed by some of 

 them, at least, with scrupulous care, that are very 

 generally disregarded by us. One of these is in 

 regard to the selection of seed. 



Columella, who wrote about the time of our 

 Saviour, in some remarks upon the selecting of 

 the best seeds to propagate from, says : 



"I have this further direction to give, that when 

 the cornes are cut down and brought into the 

 threshing-fioor, we should even then think of 

 making provision of seed for the future seed-time ; 

 for this is what Celsus says — where the corn and 

 crop is but small, we must select the best ears, 

 and of them lay up our seed separately by itself." 



The method, however, most farmers practice in 

 reference to this important matter is far less sci- 

 entific and rational ; they do not hesitate to pur- 

 chase of any one having the reputation of being 

 a "good farmer," any kind of seed he may chance 

 to recommend or have on hand. In this way fa- 

 tal mistakes are often made, and lands which have 

 been prepared with patient industry, are stocked 

 with seeds which are nearly worthless, and sure 

 to disappoint the expectations of those who have 

 expended much time and capital in procuring and 

 planting them. 



An able writer, who is also a practical farmer, 

 says : "I am convinced that a proper selection of 

 wheat is indispensable, my crops having almost 

 doubled in produce since I have raised seed of a 

 pure sort. Those intelligent and superior farmers 

 who have already made great strides towards pure 

 crops by a careful selection of seed, must not ex- 

 pect so great an increase. But even to those I 

 hold out decided hopes of improvements by the 

 means I recommend." 



There are a great many varieties of wheat. 



Le Couteur's collections embraced one hundred 

 and fifty distinct sorts. One ear of one of these 

 varieties he sowed grain by grain and suffered the 

 plants to tiller a part. The amount of produce 

 exceeded four ounces ! Indian corn, when care 

 is exercised in selecting the best formed, but not 

 always the largest ears, and those which are the 

 earliest ripe, and continuing the practice for a 

 succession of years, is found to be greatly im- 

 proved, both as regards earliness of maturation 

 and productiveness. The same remark applies 

 with equal force to other vegetables — roots as well 

 as grains. 



Attention to this subject will result in great 

 gain to all who are cultivating extensive crops. 



COMSTOGK'S EOTAKY SPADER. 



Believing that hard work is the great objection 

 to farming, especially in the mind of "Young 

 America," we rejoice at every indication of the 

 near approach of the good time coining when the 

 drudgery of cultivation shall be performed in a 

 great measure by machines instead of human 

 hands. # For many years an indefinite vision has 

 floated in our brain of some machine to take the 

 place of the simple plow, which has changed only 

 inform from the primitive "crooked stick" of our' 

 antediluvian forefathers. Last year we copied from 

 the Western papers a brief notice of experiments 

 with the Rotary Spader. The universal scarcity 

 of farm help throughout the country has increased 

 the demand for machinery beyond all precedent, 

 and it is used this year as never before. Hon. 

 M. S. Suliivant, of Broadlands, Champaign Co., . 

 Ohio, has four of Comstock's Rotary Spaders on 

 his extensive farm this season. With these ma- 

 chines he estimates the cost of preparing the soil 

 and planting corn at fifty (50) cents per acre, al- 

 lowing one dollar and a half per day for men and 

 fifty cents *per day for horses. In a communica- 

 tion to the Rural New Yorker, he says : 



I commenced working one of them on the 19th 

 of April, preparing ground for corn, and have 

 worked it constantly since, when the ground was 

 in condition for working. A few days later I 

 started two more, and a fourth some days since ; 

 they have all been running constantly when it was 

 not too wet. I am working two of them with four 

 horses and one man each ; the other two we work 

 in a gang, with a team of six pairs of oxen, driv- 

 en and managed by one man. 



"These machines work three feet in width and 

 eight inches deep, pulverizing the soil more thor- 

 oughly and preparing a better seed bed than I 

 have been enabled to do with the plow and har- 

 row. The horse machines do one acre each per 

 hour, with a speed of two and three-quarter miles ; 

 the gang will do one acre per hour, with a speed 

 of one and three-eighth miles. 



"I expect, in a day or two, to have a machine 

 the full width of a corn row, (three feet, eight 

 inches,) at work, with a self-acting corn-planter 

 attached. This machine will be capable of pre- 



