THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



265 



MEDITERRANEAN WHEAT. 



We wish we were at liberty to give the name 

 of the author of the following interesting and 

 practical letter on the subject of wheat. Our 

 readers must take our word for it that our friend 

 is a gentleman who illustrates his sound judg- 

 ment by practical success in farming. We can 

 only say for ourselves, that having sought his 

 opinions for our own private use, we mean to 

 act on them so far as to sow one-third of our 

 land in Mediterranean wheat. 



It will be remembered that we published 

 some time ago a letter from our former neighbor 

 and much esteemed friend, Dr. Merriwether, of 

 Albemarle, to the precise purport of the pres- 

 ent extract. We commend a re-perusal of that 

 letter along with this to all who expect to suflfei* 

 from fly and Joint worm, or chinch bug: 



August 1, 1856. 



Dear Sir — When I received your letter of 

 the 18th July, asking me to give you my expe- 

 i-ieuce in the cultivation of Mediterranean 

 wheat, I had just commenced threshing out a 

 field of one huudred acres of it, and have post- 

 poned a reply to your letter until I could ascer- 

 tain the result. I am much disappointed in the 

 product. While other kinds of wheat of this 

 crop have yielded very well, this field which 

 from its growth of straw I had estimated would 

 produce at least eighteen bushels per acre has 

 yielded only about thirteen bushels. The field 

 is an outlying one, of cold, stiff land, recovered 

 a few years ago from briars and broomstraw, 

 but brought into good condition in fallow, and 

 sown from 30th August to 3d September with 

 If bushels Mediterranean wheat per acre, about 

 200 pounds Peruvian guano ploughed in with 

 the fallow plough. 'The yield is not positively 

 so bad for the land as unequal to its promising 

 growth of straw at 'harvest. 



My neighbours who are threshing find the 

 comparative yield equally bad, and I think are 

 generally disposed to abandon the cultivation of 

 it. I am much at a loss to account for this bad 

 yield, and suppose that it may have been injur- 

 ed in the bloom by a frost which we had about 

 the 30th May, which killed some corn and ten- 

 der vegetables in the garden. Since I com- 

 menced the cultivation of this wheat in 1843, I 

 have had two crops of it seriously injured by 

 Spring frosts after it had jointed, and this is 

 one of our greatest dangers in sowing very for- 

 ward wheats and very early sowing. I have 

 heretofore found some important advantages in 

 the cultivation of this wheat, and shall sow this 

 fall fifty bushels of it about the 1st September, 

 with Timothy on cold, stiff land, suitable for 

 meadow, land on this kind of land I think it 

 will produce as much as any other kind of wheat 

 with less liability to injury from rust and win- 



ter freezing, and with the great advantage of 

 sowing Timothy and other grass seeds with it 

 early in September, which I have found ne- 

 cessary to success. On dry soils, sandy or red 

 clays, I have not found this wheat to succeed. 

 To your inquiry "as to the time at which I 

 know by experience this wheat may be sown 

 without danger from fly," I can reply with con- 

 fidence that I have repeatedly sown it about the 

 1st September without sustaining the least in- 

 jury from fly, though it may be sometimes found 

 in it. I would not sow earlier than the 1st Sep- 

 tember, because before that time we often have 

 severe droughts to prevent the seed from germi- 

 nating, and a hot sun unfavorable to the growth 

 of the young plant. You inquire whether I 

 have found full grazing necessary to success ? 

 I have never thought it safe to cripple or retard 

 the growth wheat intended to produce a very ear- 

 ly crop in any way, as our fall seasons are too 

 short. On lower James river where the fall 

 season is longer and the winter more mild, the 

 practice might be judicious. 



There are other advantages in our system of 

 farming and grazing in the cultivation of early 

 sown Mediterranean wheat. We cut up our 

 corn and put it in shocks about the time that 

 you commence pulling fodder or a little later. 

 This we can seldom begin before the 10th Sep- 

 tember, before which time a field may be sown 

 with Mediterranean, well drained, and put in 

 perfect order before our farm work becomes 

 pressing, and we are enabled to get our w^hole 

 crop of wheat sown early in October, which all 

 wheat growers with us now deem of great im- 

 portance to success. At harvest, this is harvest- 

 ed before other wheats are ripe, being three or 

 four days earlier than the early P. Straw and a 

 week earlier than any other kind of wheat. 



While I cultivated this wheat, from the years 

 1843 to 1848, as a regular part of my crop, I had 

 good grov^ths of Blue Stem and other late 

 wheats almost ruined by rust year after year, 

 while the Mediterranean, then as now, always 

 having the worst wheat soils assigned to it, was 

 little affected by rust, and produced fair average 

 crops. For the last five or six years we have 

 had little rust, and the late wheats have pro- 

 duced well, which I attribute in part to the gen- 

 eral use of guano which hastens the maturity 

 of the wheat, and which alone induces me to 

 continue the use of it at present high prices. 

 In 1853 our great enemy from Albemarle, the 

 Joint worm, began to show itself among us. 

 The late wheat seemed to be most injured by it, 

 and the Mediterranean to get into head before 

 the J oint worm had deposited its egg. I had 

 that fall a stubble fallow field of 145 acres sown 

 in wheat, 45 acres of the most inferior land, 

 (except a few acres of bulk flat,) in the field 

 sown with eighty-three bushels Mediterranean 

 from 21)th to 31st August, and 105 acres of the 

 best wheat land in the field sown from 23d Sep- 

 tember to 20th O ctober with 151 bushels Poland 

 and Moravian wheat, chiefly the former, about 



