THE RURAL WEW-YORKER 
butes it to a very small insect which perfor¬ 
ates the chaff somewhat in the manner of the 
I>ea beetle ami deposits an egg. In confirma¬ 
tion of this, he says that if an ear of smut be 
closely examined while green, a small punc¬ 
ture will be found going through the chaff op¬ 
posite every kernel. He further states that if 
smutted wheat be left in the stack for a year 
or two, wheli it is opened no wholegrains or 
ears of smut M ill be found, but there will be 
a great deal of dust, and scales made by the in¬ 
sects in escaping. It may be objected to this 
theory that it is asserted that wheat is fre¬ 
quently destroyed by this fiingus before the 
ears have appeared from the sheath. 
Three Essentials in Wheat Growing. 
A successful wheat grower of this section 
claims that the three things necessary to be 
done in growing a good crop of wheat are : to 
sow early ; to fertilize liberally : and to pas¬ 
ture closely. I should omit the last, but sub¬ 
scribe to the other two. Yet he contends that 
the last is absolutely essential, and accordingly 
acts up to his theory by grazing his wheat off 
with sheep. His average yield per acre for 
some years past has been from 30 to lib bushels. 
I cannot help believing that his yield would 
be greater if the grazing were omitted, for it 
must make the wheat later in ripening, and 
the tramping done to the land in wet weather 
is assuredly not beneficial to the crop. 1 have 
never observed the effects ol grazing except 
on small patches on which fowls were running 
during the Winter. In these cases, the plants 
bloomed ten days later than the rest of the 
field and never matured their grain at all. 
Pulaski Co., Va. 
smooth wheats, as compared with the bearded 
wheats, are as follows:— 
Av. yield, Wt. of (train, 
bushels. pounds, 
Smooth . 30.28 59 Jf 
Bearded..,.,.22.50 GOJi 
In regai d to the last two points Warder & 
Barnett write as follows"—“ White wheats are 
not usually as hardy as red, and smooth are 
not nearly as hardy as bearded. In an expe¬ 
rience of :l»i yearn we have never known a 
smooth wheat which would stand more than 
three crops." Our figures point toward the 
same conclusion, and it would seem worth 
while to examine this matter further, 
Columbus, Ohio. C. E. Thorne. 
a large farm he can do this accurately enough 
for practical purposes by putting it 
into the drill first and carefully leveling it 
before emptying in the general seed, when the 
man may be set to work as usual. The next 
Like a well-bred (lock of sheep, where the 
owner had bred toward one standard, they 
were even and uniformly good. 
Here is another idea which is worthy of at¬ 
tention. It is from the Hon. George Geddes, 
one of the noblemen of the great State of New 
York: ‘‘At or before the time of thrashing 
set some 1 sheaves on a floor, heads upward, and 
then draw out the most perfect heads—those 
of the greatest length and the best tilled. Put 
this selected seed on land in the best condi¬ 
tion in every respect; weed the wheat, t he next 
Spring. Out of this again, the next year, draw 
the best heads, and so on for several years— 
the longer the better. By-aud-by whoever 
does this will have some seed wheat to sell 
that he may be willing to have bear his name, 
and he will be a public benefactor.” 
By this means he will get seed wheat which 
has had good ancestors for a series of years. 
Many of our farmers are quite particular to 
sow good, clean seed wheat, and probably all 
would prefer such. How are the plump ker¬ 
nels selected ? By means of the screens in the 
fanning-miU the kernels are separated. They 
come from all sorts of heads, long or short, 
lari/e nr smalt , from those stools producing a 
few small heads, or from those producing 
many large ones. The seeds are selected, at 
random from anything that may happen to 
produce large kernels. In this common prac¬ 
tice no attention is paid to pedigree, This 
plan is good so far as it goes, but it does not 
go far enough. 
Men are numerous in every State of our 
great country who use better judgment in 
breeding their annuals. We need more men 
who will patiently, persistently and intelli- 
SELECTING SEED WHEAT AND OTHER 
GRAINS. 
PROFESSOR W. W. TRACY, 
The general history of new varieties of 
grain has been about as follows. Some one 
finds a single plant produced by accident, 
which in certain desirable qualities (generally 
those of productiveness and hardiness) exceeds 
the varieties he is familiar with. He care¬ 
fully saves and plants the grain in carefully 
prepared soil and. anxious to make the most 
of his seed, sows it, so thin that each plant has 
a chance to perfectly develop and mature all 
the grain possible. As the stock increases, it 
is distributed over the country and the seed, 
being rare and costly, every one gives it an 
equally good chance, and the new sort is reputed 
to exceed any .of the old sorts in product¬ 
iveness. In a few years the seed becomes 
abundant and is sown like the older varieties 
and then speedily loses its good reputation 
and is abandoned for some newer sort. 
Let us look for the reason and the remedy 
for this. No one can go through Ms wheat 
field without noticing that each individual 
plant produces, even in a maximum crop, far 
Jess grain than the plant, would be capable of 
if it were in the most favorable condition for 
its most perfect development, and it cannot be 
otherwise than that the continual using of such 
plants for seeds must tend to reduce the produc¬ 
tiveness of the stock. But let us look farther. 
If wc examine the ripening grains,we will find 
that many of the plants have been so crowded 
that they have produced but single short 
heads: but examine these heads and in many 
cases you will find they contain but a very few 
grains, although frequently these few are ex¬ 
ceptionally large and tine. So often is this 
the case, that let anyone attempt to select a 
few of the largest grains from a given field 
and he will find he obtains the majority of 
them from small or poorly filled heads. Much 
has been written on the desirability of care¬ 
fully selecting seed grain, but it is usually ac¬ 
companied with directions for selecting the 
largest and plumpest kernels, a course-which, 
1 think, will surely result in giving seed grain 
largely obtained from poorly developed 
plants. Is it any wonder, then, that even the 
most careful farmers are continually com¬ 
plaining that, the wheat which formerly gave 
_ S i- Character of grata. Character of 
An Experiment Made on the Farm of the 
Ohio State University. 
Thirty-three varieties of wheat were sown 
in the Fall of 1880 upon a piece of bottom land 
selected for its apparently uniform quality. 
The previous crop was Timothy, and the field 
was plowed in September. On account of the 
excessive drought, sowing was delayed until 
October 4th to 0th, but even then the seed lay 
in the ground until much of it had malted be¬ 
fore there came rain enough to start it into 
vigorous growth. On this account the experi¬ 
ment may not be as reliable as could be wished 
with regard to the comparative productiveness 
of the different varieties, although it is believed 
that all of them were equally exposed to the 
unfavorable conditions, Other questions-—as to 
comparative weight of grain, quality of grain 
and straw, etc.—of course were not affected. 
One of the varieties, the ‘‘Black-bearded, 
Ccnteiuiial ” proves a total failure, not being 
adapted to the climate. After harvest sam¬ 
ples of each variety were, sent to Warder & 
Barnett, merchant millers, of Springfield, O., 
with the request that they test the same with 
reference to their value for milling purposes. 
This they have kindly done, and their report 
is given in the following table, together with 
the agricultural results of the experiment:— 
SOME EXPERIMENTS WITH WHEAT. 
WALDO F. BROWN, 
In the Fall of 1878 I put in two acres of 
wheat and sowed one bushel of seed on one 
i acre, and one-half bushel on the 
other. It was sown September 8, 
* U1( 1 when it first came up there 
Jr | A\ was a marked difference between 
jl! [ (1 the two strips. But, the Fall was 
m \\ f\ favorable for growth, and before 
ft \ |\ TO Winter it was difficult to tell 
((l i Lf\ which was the thin-seeded part. 
Y\ \{ V/ -A- neighbor cut it for me, and I 
% ! ' •]/ Wld him that one side was seeded 
\1 1 f// "'ith half a bushel and the other 
ll I with a bushel, and asked him to 
1 pay particular attention and see 
I if he could tell which was the 
/ J heaviest, but he could detect no 
1 difference. We bad 103 shocks, 
*1 i 1 |l 81 on oue aCit ‘- an ‘ l r >~ On the 
I L | other, and the yield was 35 
*!■ ll bushels per acre. The next year 
| i j\ I added four acres to the piece 
if ,\ If and seeded it with three peeks of 
If \ seed to the acre. The yield was 
I ; /]|'j l s,) bushels, or 30 bushels per 
1 J ) / acre. I have grown uii picked 
| j 11 acres over 40 bushels of wheat 
llli '* \j from three pecks of seed. 
| | Ji fo the Fall of 1878 I manured 
jl \ ; a strip of thin land with bone 
|’| \ \ J owai at the rate of about 300 
I I j || pounds per acre, and left a space 
I \ jl one rod wide through the center 
I l 111 \ t*’ test the. difference. As soon 
I |i ‘ as the wheat started to grow in the 
j jl Spring, that on which the bone 
was used out grew the other, so 
^=3 ? that it could be seen from a dia¬ 
ls!* tanee in passing the field, and 
5L a t harvest the uumunuml strip 
was not worth cutting, while 
w/ the part “ boned,” made 15 bush¬ 
els of excellent wheat to the acre. 
In the Fall of 1870 I sowed 
four acres of wheat on corn land. 
It was a cold clay, and 1 had rare- 
lil! ly grown a paying crop on it, the 
if corn that year did not make 30 
I bushels to the acre, I divided it 
__ into four equal strips ami manured 
Mm the first with one barrel of sifted 
IL hen manure ; the second with 13 
v loads of stable manure ; the third 
fig. 447. with 300 pounds of ground bone 
RURAL WINTER HARD AUS¬ 
TRALIAN.— FlU. 445. 
RURAL WINTER HARD 
FIFE.—FIO. 446. 
season, just before cutting, let him go into 
the part of the field where this choice seed 
was planted, and select a corresponding num¬ 
ber of the best plants for the next season’s 
seed stock, and cut and save the remainder of 
this part of the field to use for general seed 
that year. He can easily do tins by simply 
cutting and stocking it first and hauling it 
into the barn last. In this way I think 
every farmer might not only maintain, but in¬ 
crease the productiveness of the variety best 
suited to his wants, and not be obliged to send 
off every few yearn for some new and better 
yielding sort. 
Columbia, Mo. 
NAME OF VARIETY 
SlillinfClquallty 
Stiffness 
1. Siberian. 
2. Heige’s Prolific. 
3. Mammoth Red. 
4 . York White Chaff. 
5. Kickenbrode. 
6 . Champion Amber.. 
.. -McGhee's Red. 
S. Grecian. 
y. Arnold's Gold Medul_ 
10. German Aintier. 
11. Red Amber.. 
12 . Sandoinirku. 
13. Silver Chaff.. 
14. Clawson. 
15. Fully.. 
hi. Velvet Chaff. 
17. Egyptian. 
is. Michigan Amber. 
10. Yellow Missouri. 
20. Lancaster. 
21. American White. 
22. Mediterranean. 
23. Smit h’s Improved." 
24. Hungarian White Chuff 
25. Treadwell... 
26. Tappuhannock. 
27. Russian No. 2. 
28. Scott... 
29. Swamp. 
3i). Zimmerman. 
31. Theiss. 
32. Golden Straw. 
'_ Averages.,..,... 
s Poor and weak, 
s Pret ty good. 
1 Pret ty good. 
854 Good. 
3|q I Good.7 
Good. 
3!<i Good. 
3!a Good. 
3*4 Good. 
3*4 Poor. 
3*.ij Medium. 
3 q Good. 
3g. Poor. 
3U Poor. 
3*8 Good. 
Good. 
8 W Medium. 
3*4 Good. 
3*Z Good. 
30: Good, 
sq, Medium. 
8 * Good. 
3*4 Poor. 
30, Good. 
3 04 Poor. 
306 Medium. 
304 Medium. 
30 , Good. 
3 * Good. 
231 Good. 
3 *41 Poi ir. 
3*.I Poor. 
30) Good. 
3*,| Poor. 
3k' Good. 
W i Pretty good. 
W m Good and strong. 
A m Poor and weak. 
A i Good. 
W s Weak. 
W m Weak. 
A 1 Good. 
A 1 Good. 
W s Good. 
W m Mod era rely good. 
W m Poor, 
ft m Pool'. 
A m Good and strong. 
A ,m Tolerably good, 
IMPROVING WHEAT, 
PROFESSOR W. J, BEAL 
i Little gluten, 
s Poor. 
1 Choice and strong. 
1 I ‘ret ry strong. 
1 Good and strong, 
rn, Pretty good. 
1 | Good. 
1 , Good. 
s Choice, tolerably strong, 
s I very good. 
I Tolerably good. 
1 T,,l.,...,l.1. . .1 
ii jer; K, red; W, white; 15, bearded; S, smooth; s, small; m, 
nely small proportion of straw to grain in Heige’s Prolific i 
in is reported In the tests of the Missouri Agricultural Colic 
The average yield and weight of grain of 
the varieties ripening on successive days are 
as follows:— 
Av. yield, Wt. of grain, 
:: 7 . ns «&■ 
oo,.(. 20.68 5942 
8,2 . 15.62 57 $ 
The average yield and weight of grain of the 
red and amber, as compared with the white 
wheats, are as follows:— 
A V. y ield, W't. of grain, 
Red ana amber. « Joun ‘}& 
. *>m> g* 
The average yield and weight of grain of the 
them a good yield has to be abandoned be¬ 
cause it lias become unproductive it 
Is there any remedy ? I think there is and 
a very simple one—namely, select your seed 
grain, as all other choice seed is selected, for 
the qualities of the plant rather than those of 
the individual seed. Is it practical to do this? 
I think so, and in this way: Let each fanner, 
before cutting his wheat, go into the field and 
select enough of the best plants—those pro¬ 
ducing. the greatest number of large and well- 
filled heads to give him about one quart of 
seed for each 1.5 w 30 acres he is to plant; let 
him thrash and save this seed by itself and 
sow it across one end or side of liis field. On 
