112 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[April, 
Selecting Seed Corn, 
"When seed com has not been saved in .autumn," 
Tvrites an experienced person, "it should be se- 
lected from the crib with much care. Choose 
the long cars, -with large kernels an\l small cob. 
Let ever}- ear be broken in two, before shelling. 
If the pith and cob be bright, the seed will vege- 
tate; but if they appear to have been water- 
soaked and are dark-colored and somewhat 
mouldy, the vitality of the germs has been in- 
jured, if not entirely destroyed. Then with an 
ax cut off an inch of the top end of the ears 
selected, and all the irregular kernels at the 
large end. They can be cut off quicker than 
shelled off. The small kernels on the tip, and 
irregular ones on the butt of the ear will not 
produce as much, nor as handsome grain as 
those that grow in the middle of the cob. By 
continuing to plant the sm.all kernels of the 
little end of ears, for a few years in succession, 
the ears will be shorter, and the kernels small- 
er; and the irregular kernels of the butt end 
will produce ears destitute of kernels in rows. 
The writer once planted irregular kernels for 
a few successive years, and the product was 
short, thick ears, the kernels of irregular form, 
not in rows, on large cobs. When seed corn is 
obtained from another part of the country, it 
will usu.ally ripen earlier when carried south of 
the locality where it grew. A few miles, how- 
ever, would make no perceptible difference. 
The practice of some farmers in Central New- 
York is, to obtain seed that grew near 
the shores of lakes and rivers, which bad 
ripened ten to fourteen d.ays before that grown 
on the upland. By this means their corn is 
usually fit to cut up a few days sooner than 
It would have been, if they had planted their 
own seed, and will often escape early frost." 
Preparation of Wheat for Sowing. 
— • — 
Adjust the fanning-mill to give a light shake, 
and heavy blast, and put in the screen-board to 
carry the grain outward, to drop within three 
or four inches of the end of the coarse screen, 
which will allow all the small kernels and seeds 
of various weeds to fall into the screen-box. 
The wheat sieve should be set in the slanting 
gains, for carrying off the oats and other foreign 
matters. Most of the light wheat will also be 
blown over the screen, and the largest kernels 
will run down through the mill to the floor. 
The grain that is blown over, as well as that 
which goes into the screen-box, will make good 
flour, but is not good for seed. If the oats be 
not all blown out of the seed, at first a wheat 
sieve of perforated zinc, or pressed wire cloth, 
must be put in the slanting gains, the screen- 
board removed, and the seed run through 
again, with light shake, and slow feed. The 
holes of the perforated zinc, or meshes of wire 
clotli, should be just large enough to allow the 
wheat to pass through. Then, if the shoe of the 
mill be adjusted to shake level, the remaining 
kernels of heavy oats will slide over the boles, 
and fall beyond the sieves. By this means, all 
the half-ripe and shrunken kernels, not fit for 
seed, will be separated from the large ones, 
which will produce earlier and better grain. 
These directions are applicable only to those 
farmers who have nothing but an ordinary fim- 
ning-mill. In some of the improved grain-sepa- 
rators, with only once running through, nearly 
every kernel of oats will pass over the screen, 
while the wheat will be neatly assorted and 
dropped into four different boxes, the largest 
kernels, most suitable for seed, being deposited 
in the first box, and the sm.illest in the fourth 
box. Before sowing, prepare a strong brine. 
Half a barrel will be needed to pickle as little 
as 4 or .5 bushels of grain, but of course, would 
answer for much more, and to this quantity add 
half a pound of blue vitriol (sulphate of copper). 
A portion is done at a time, stirring it well, and 
skimming off all that floats, dirt, foul stuff, smut- 
ty grains, etc. As fast as each portion is soaked, 
throw it out into a basket to drain. The pick- 
ling should be done 4 to 12 hours before sowing. 
Just previous to sowing, the grain should be 
spread out upon a clean floor and rolled in 
lime slaked to a dry powder, stirring the heap 
with rakes. Wheat should always be drill- 
ed in where this is practicable. 
Soils for Spring Wheat. 
Wheat, whether winter or spring, does best 
in soils in which there is a good portion of clay. 
When the soil is composed for the most part of 
muck, as occurs in many places in New- York, 
Canada, and some of the Western States, it re- 
quires much preparation before it will produce 
well, and such soils can only be made to yield 
heavy crops of wheat, with profit, when claj', 
in some form, can be supplied. A firm, fertile, 
and dry soil, is particularly adapted to wheat, 
and such soils as have been under-drained are 
more productive, and require much less manure. 
In many places, where a black, mucky soil, 
several inches deep, rests on a heavy sub-soil, 
by turning up two or three inches of the latter 
in autumn, and mingling it thoroughly with the 
soil, draining if nccessar}', and manuring, a 
very good wheat soil may be formed in a few 
years. Where the muck is so deep that the 
clayey sub-soil cannot be reached with a plow, 
and clay can be obtained within a distance of 
half a mile, it will pay to apply eighty or a 
hundred loads per acre. The best time to 
spread it is late in autumn, or in winter, that it 
may be acted upon by rains .and frosts. Still, if 
applied in the spring, and plowed in, the effect 
will be good on the crop the same year. Por- 
tions of fields frequently are very heavy, while 
other portions are composed, for the most part, 
of vegetable mould. The practice of the 
writer has been to haul mucky soil and spread 
it on the heavy clay, and in all cases the applica- 
tion has produced an equal or better effect for 
wheat than a liberal application of good barn- 
yard manure. As there is a great difference 
in muck, this might not tilways be the case. 
Such compact, heavy soils contain a large 
amount of wheat-producing material, but need 
to be made light and porous, so that the roots 
of the wheat plants can permeate the entire soil 
as deeply as it has been pulverized. The best 
preparation of the land for wheat, is a dressing 
of well-rotted, or composted, barn-j'ard manure. 
Unrotted manure tends to produce a heavy 
growth of straw, which will be liable to rust, 
and yielj less grain. The best practice is to 
.apply it late in autumn, simply harrowing it in 
after the land has been well plowed. B}' spring 
it is well decomposed. Where it is desirable to 
apply the manure in the spring, scrape the hog- 
yard for it with broad hoes, and use heaps of 
fine manure previously collected, and if the soil 
be compact and heavy, add well-rotted chip 
manure. On soils in which there is a great 
amount of vegetable matter, never apply any 
b.arn-yard manure, unless it has been thoroughly 
composted, or rotted. On land where there is 
usually a great growth of straw, wood ashes, 
either leached or unleached, applied at the rate 
of 10 or 12 bushels per acre, of the unleached, 
or any quantity of the leached, will go far to 
correct the evil, and the heads will be better 
filled, and the kernels plumper. The writer 
has experienced great advaul.age from the use 
of liquid manure, especi.illy on light soil. It 
was pumped into a large hogshead, on a stone- 
boat, or on wheels, at the barn-yard, and dis- 
tributed from a trough filled with small holes. 
If the hogshead be on. wheels, this application 
may be made any time before the grain is six 
inches high, and always gives greater stiffness 
of the straw, and increases the amount of grain. 
«-■ — ^— I » 
Tie Best Large Breed of Swine. 
Several inquiries have been received from 
subscribers as to what are the best hogs. Per 
haps there is no large breed that will be found 
superior, or even equal to the Chester White, 
for general purposes. Of course when we say 
Chester White swine, we me.an nothing but 
that breed in its purity. There are thousands 
of swine that are sold at exorbitant prices for 
Chester Whites, that have only a large infusion 
of the Chester White blood. We would not be 
understood as stating that such swine are best 
for formers, or for any one. Tlie Chester Whites 
are often denounced as an inferior breed, and a 
common complaint is, that they do not do as well 
as they did a few years ago. The fault is not in 
the swine, but in their management. For ex- 
ample, a man procures a Cliester White boar 
which has proved himself to be an excellent 
animal for transmitting his good points to his 
progeny with great uniformity. He serves a 
large number of sows which possess only a limit- 
ed infusion of Chester White blood. Their pro- 
geny, to appearance, may be in every respect 
equ.al to the full blood Chester AVhites ; and they 
may possess fattening qualities quite equal, .and 
sometimes a little superior to the Chester 
Whites. Therefore, as farmers reason that 
"like will produce like," they breed from the 
best specimens of this grade, and they find 
that all their care and efforts to improve their 
swine by breeding from such animals, carries 
them farther and farther every year from the 
point of improvement at which they were aim- 
ing. This failure to improve the breed, when 
one has an excellent animal to begin with, has 
a great tendency to discourage faimers in their 
efforts to render good swine a little better. 
Breeding In-and-in. — Nothing is more common 
th.an for men of limited experience in raising 
improved stock of any kind to attribute every 
failure to breeding in-and-in. They guess, they 
think, or they know, that such a failure, or such 
a development of form in a young animal, is in 
consequence of breeding in-and-in, when the 
truth in the fact is, they know nothing at all 
about it. Sometimes the dam and sire are both 
good grade animals, but their offspring will sel- 
dom be equal to either of them for fattening 
purposes, and never will they prove to be as 
good for breeders. Consequently, the numerous 
failures in raising improved stock are much 
more attributable to breeding from grade ani- 
mals than to breeding in-and-in. A grade ani- 
mal may be quite as profitable for beef, mutton, 
or pork, as a full-blooded one, but they are not 
the kind for breeders. Those who attempt to 
raise improved stock of any kind should be 
careful not to impute the development of certain 
b.ad points in their animals to in-and-in breed- 
ing, when it is the natural and certain result of 
breeding from animals that are said to be full- 
