232 transactions of the american institute. 



Hoeing Wheat. 



Mr. A. B. Travis, Brandon, Michigan. — Mr. Chairman: I wish to introduce 

 to your association the importance of hoeing wheat in the spring between the 

 rows, when planted in drills, as soon as the ground is dry enough. I have 

 been tiying some experiments a few years past, which have proved very 

 beneficial, and would solicit your attention and urge every farmer to try the 

 experiment. As experience has taught us to cultivate corn fields, gardens 

 and fruit trees, would not the same rule prove equally good in cultivating 

 wheat and other like crops ? 



As hoeing wheat by hand would be rather slow for this country and 

 behind the times, I arranged a cultivator, on wheels of the same width and 

 space of a drill, with small teeth to go between the rows of wheat; and 

 with lever handles I can guide the hoes between the rows to any crook the 

 drill may have made. Thus one man with two horses can hoe as fast as he 

 can drill, say eight or ten acres in a day, at any depth required. The hoe 

 is very simple and durable, easily adjusted; by shifting the teeth it can be 

 used for corn or fallow. 



I would advise every farmer to try at least a small spot with a hoe, and 

 watch the result. Where I tried it a difference of full thirty per cent, was 

 gained — the heads were larger, and they often produced an extra row of 

 kernels. On clay and heavy soils hoeing is much more needed than on light. 



As winter frosts and spring thaws cause the ground to slack, which will 

 afterwards bake by the heat of the sun, unless mellowed by some hoeing 

 process, thus letting in light and wet, and those gases that advance vege- 

 tation. Hoeing also removes all foul weeds that come up promiscuously 

 between the rows; it also strengthens those shoots that are injured by the 

 winter causing them to branch out, and feeble suckers to become large and 

 healthy heads. The cultivator also pi'epares the ground to receive the seeds. 



I have used this cultivator two years in my own wheat field and in my 

 neighbors'. In 1861 the benefit derived from hoeing was from 25 to 30 

 per cent.; this year full 30 per cent, on the same farms, and some think the 

 wheat on the land hoed was full one-third better than on either side which 

 was not hoed, but otherwise had an equal chance. Yet there were some 

 small strips that I cultivated at diiferent seasons of the year that did not 

 appear to be benefited, owing to the season when done. 



I have added an attachment to it, and by shifting the teeth I can plant 

 or cultivate two rows of corn at one time; and if desired, I can use plaster 

 every time I cultivate it. 



I will give any information I possess, such as will enable any farmer to 

 have one built, who desires to avail himself of this useful labor-saving 

 machine. 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter. — I have practiced the same plan upon Indian 

 corn, sown for fodder, with very marked advantage over that sown broad- 

 cast. 



The Chairman, Prof. Mapes. — Although the " Louis Weedon system of 

 growing wheat" has been frequently spoken of here, and is familiar to all who*- 

 read the annual reports of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, it is 

 well to keep it alive before the American farmers of the old States, where 



