220 



BUCKWHEAT 



BUCKWHEAT 



the work be done on a dry, airy day, so that the 

 grain would shell easily. If threshed by machinery 

 neither crop nor day need be so dry, and it is 

 usual to remove from the thresher the spiked con- 

 cave and put in its place a smooth one, or a suit- 

 able piece of hardwood plank. This is to avoid 

 cracking the grain and unnecessarily breaking the 

 straw. The pedicels bearing the seeds are slender, 

 and these as well as the straw, when dry, are 



[Fig. 314. Buckwheat in the shock. 



brittle, so that buckwheat threshes much easier 

 than the cereals. 



Place in the rotation. — Buckwheat generally has 

 no definite place assigned it in the rotation of 

 crops. This is chiefly due to its being resorted to 

 as a substitute for meadow or spring-planted crops 

 that have failed. The poorer lands and the left- 

 over fields are usually sown to buckwheat. While 

 buckwheat seems not to be materially affected by 

 the crop that precedes it, on the other hand it is 

 reported unfavorably to affect certain crops when 

 they follow it. Oats and corn are said by many to 

 be less successful after buckwheat than after 

 other crops. That this is so has not been estab- 

 lished by any experiment station. Buckwheat 

 leaves the soil in a peculiarly mellow, ashy con- 

 dition. In the case of rather heavy soils on which 

 it is desired to grow potatoes this is a decided 

 benefit, and in some localities the practice of pre- 

 ceding potatoes by buckwheat, for the purpose of 

 securing this effect, has become common. The 

 following rotation is sometimes recommended for 

 such soils : clover, buckwheat, potatoes, oats or 

 wheat with clover-seeding. The first crop of clover 

 is harvested early and the land immediately plowed 

 and sown to buckwheat as a preparation for 

 potatoes. 



Varieties. 



There are three principal varieties of buckwheat 

 grown in America : the common Gray, Silver-hull 

 and Japanese. The Silver-hull is slightly smaller 

 than the common Gray ; the color is lighter and of 



a glossy, silvery appearance. The Japanese is 

 larger than the Gray and of somewhat darker 

 color, and there is a tendency for the angles or 

 edges of the hull to extend into a wing, making the 

 faces of the grain more concave. The plant of 

 the Japanese variety is a somewhat larger grower 

 than the others and the flowers seem not to be so 

 subject to blasting from hot sunshine. For this 

 reason it is recommended in some localities to sow 

 the Silver-hull and Japanese va- 

 rieties mixed, it being asserted 

 that the hardier Japanese variety 

 will shade and protect the other 

 from the hot sunshine, thus avoid- 

 ing blasting and securing a larger 

 zone of seed-bearing straw than 

 is furnished by either sort ahme, 

 a larger yield resulting. 



Each of these varieties has 

 produced largest yield in certain 

 tests. It seems that there is an 

 adaptation of variety to soil or 

 climate, or, perhaps, to weather 

 conditions, that has not yet been 

 worked out, which produces these 

 contradictory results. However, 

 the yielding quality of the Japan- 

 ese variety is usually conceded 

 to be superior to the others. 

 Formerly, the flouring qualities 

 ^ of this variety were pronounced 



by many millers to be inferior to 

 the other sorts, and not infrequently the price of 

 Japanese buckwheat was five or ten cents per 

 bushel less than the others. In some localities this 

 condition still prevails ; in others the reverse is 

 true. In parts of Seneca county, N. Y., in recent 

 seasons the millers have offered an advance of five 

 cents per bushel for the Japanese variety. Whether 

 this results from change in the quality of the grain 

 due to acclimatization or to better adaptation of 

 the milling methods to the variety has not been 

 ascertained. 



Uses. 



Formerly a considerable part of the buckwheat 

 was used for animal food, only enough flour being 

 manufactured to meet the requirements of the 

 rural districts during the winter season. Of late, 

 the demand for the flour in the cities has been 

 such that most of the grain is ground for flour 

 and less of the flour is consumed in the rural 

 districts. 



Buckwheat flour is whiter than that made from 

 wheat and has a peculiar mealy feel to the hand 

 that enables one readily to distinguish it from 

 wheat flour. The first flour on the market after 

 harvest brings a high price, but the price rapidly 

 declines as the supply increases. The grain must 

 be well dried and the grinding done in cool, dry 

 weather to get best results in milling. The yield 

 of flour per bushel of buckwheat is usually about 

 twenty-flve pounds, though twenty-eight or more 

 may be secured if the grain is plump and very 

 dry. The middlings, a by-product of the flouring 



