VOL. XLVII. NO, 2015. NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 8, 1888, 
[Entered According to Act of Congress, In the Year 18S8, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.] 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
NEW (?) WHEATS. 
It is very desirable that farmers should 
know what variety of wheat will give them 
the highest number of bushels to the acre and 
sell for the highest price. How is the farmer 
to find this out? Evidently by a trial of 
varieties which are raised about him and of 
others which are offered for sale. This may 
be done in a small way at no great expense. 
The Rural’s] ^trials 
have generally been 
made on little plots of 
a fortieth of an acre 
each. It is well to know 
the exact area sown, so 
that the yields of differ¬ 
ent kinds can easily be 
compared, if the farm¬ 
er is willing to go to the 
trouble of thrashing 
them separately. But 
it requires no great ex¬ 
perience to determine 
which plot will yield 
the most from its gen¬ 
eral appearance and 
from a comparison of 
average heads and the 
number and size of the 
kernels. 
The following kinds 
were sown Sept., 15. 
The seed was sent to 
us at our request, by 
J. A. Foote, of Craw- 
fordsville, Ind. Our 
illustrations are pho¬ 
tographs of average 
heads. 
Wyandotte Red. 
Rather small kernel, 
dark amber. Heads 
(beardless) average 8 
breasts or spikelets to 
a side and nearly three 
kernels to a breast. 
It is early, ripening 
about June 27. Stem 
red. This is A in the 
illustration. 
Patagonian (B). 
Rather small berry, 
dark amber. Straw not \ 
V . ery A.—Wyamlo.tc lt«1. 
straw like Fultz. Heads 
beardless, small to me¬ 
dium in size. Earliest 
to ripen. Scarcely more 
than two grains to a spikelet. 
High Grade (C). Grain like Wyandotte 
Red but a trifle larger. Resembles New Mon¬ 
arch though a little later. Yellow stem. 
Dietz Longberry (D). Fair-sized kernels, 
dark amber though not long as the name im¬ 
plies. It resembles Fulcaster but is a little 
later; bearded. Early. 
New Monarch (E). Kernels medium size, 
dark amber. General description the same 
as for High Grade. 
Golden Eureka (F).—Rather small;kernel, 
amber color. Medium season to ripen. Re¬ 
sembles Silver Chaff; beardless. Seven 
spikelets to a side, two to three kernels to a 
spikelet. Straw five feet tall, yellow stem. 
Fulcaster (G.) Early. Berry medium 
size, heads bearded, six spikelets to a side, 
averaging two and a-half kernels. Straw 
four feet nine inches tall, rather slender. 
Does not “ stool ” much. Red straw. 
Notes Taken July 1st.—“Fulcaster and 
Dietz Longberry are so nearly alike that one 
will answer for the other. Both bearded, red 
straw, both ripen at the same time. New 
Monarch is much the same as High Grade. 
Patagonian is much the same as Wyandotte 
Red except the chaff of latter is lighter. 
Ripens same. Both red straw, beardless, 
same sized heads.” 
The above wheats are not in any way re¬ 
markable as grown here. All were perfectly 
hardy, so that there was no chance for com¬ 
parison as to relative hardiness. Owing to 
the injury done by sparrows the yield could 
not be estimated. It could not have been less 
both in quality and quantity, ever grown. In 
our county the total yield does not exceed 25, 
or at the farthest, 33 per cent, of last year’s 
crop. When it is seen that one field adjoin¬ 
ing another sown with the same kind of wheat 
has produced a fair crop while the other was 
so worthless as to be plowed up, aud that al¬ 
most all fields were in patches, it will appear 
that it is difficult to make fair comparisons be¬ 
tween the different kinds. The only way to 
determine their relative values is by taking 
the averages of a large breadth of country. 
Before speaking of the knowledge obtained I 
would refer to an important lesson to be 
learned from this serious failure of the wheat 
crop. It is a lesson that lies so fairly on the 
surface that no one should fail to read it. 
In taking a general survey of this country, 
it is not difficult to arrive at the comparative 
yield of the varieties sown. The Fultz still 
remains a reliable wheat, but the following 
sorts seem to have surpassed it in yield:— 
Poole, Hybrid-Mediterranean and Longberry 
Red. To these probably should be added 
Fulcaster,a very fine wheat in quality of grain. 
The Poole in a large majority of cases has sur¬ 
passed in yield other kinds owing, as I think, 
to its hardiness. I know of crops this bad 
season of 35, 36 and 39 bushels to the acre on 
one to three acres, a yield^which has not been 
equaled by auy other sort to my knowledge. 
The Hybrid or Diehl-Mediterranean, has gone 
to 31 bushels in a large field. The Longberry 
Red is a wheat grown a good deal here, a 
smooth wheat with 
good qualities and its 
name is probably lo¬ 
cal. As to new Mon¬ 
arch and Dietz Long¬ 
berry, my knowledge 
is lirhited, but favor¬ 
able. Several sorts 
disseminated in the 
past two years, seem 
to have dropped out 
of estimation, such as 
Martin Amber, Tas¬ 
manian, Patagonian, 
Early Rice, German 
Amber and Nigger. 
I do not hear good ac¬ 
counts of High Grade. 
In this connection it 
is not improper to say 
that too much reliance 
may be placed in the 
results at experiment 
stations. This is ap¬ 
parent on their face, 
but at any rate, a test 
on their grounds is just 
one test, and, as said 
in the beginning, true 
values can be deter 
mined only by many 
tests and on a large 
scale. Still these sta¬ 
tion tests should not 
be discouraged. 
Crawfordsville Ind. 
LANDRETH (ARM¬ 
STRONG). 
THE LARGEST CROP 
EVER RAISED AT THE 
RURAL FARM. 
II c 1> 
JI,—PaiuKoniun. C.—Iliurli Grade. I).—Dietz 
E F 
Louitberry. E.—New Monarch. 
F.—Golden Eureka. G.—Fulcaster. 
SOME NEW WHEATS. From Nature. Fig. 310. 
than 28 to 30 bushels to the acre, and it would 
have been difficult to guess which would yield 
most. Our choice between them would be 
determined by their flouring qualities of which 
we know nothing. 
WHEAT IN INDIANA. 
J. A. FOOTE. 
Poorest crop of wheat ever grown ; an im¬ 
portant lesson ; value of a good start; ef¬ 
fects of drilling in a small Quantity of 
fertilizer in a bad season ; Fultz , Poole , 
Diehl-Mediterranean , Longberry Red , 
Fulcaster , New Monarch , Martin-Amber , 
High Grade , etc. 
The present season in Central Indiana has 
produced one of the poorest crops of wheat, 
Wherever wheat was sown in new ground, on 
manured land or on clover sod there was 
reaped a fair crop. That on poor or moderate 
soil made a failure. Of course, there may have 
been some exceptions where fields were well 
protected or lying so low as to be covered 
with ice. Now the lesson is, not that good soil 
will always produce more than poor soil— 
something that every one knows—but that 
wherever the wheat got a good start in the fall, 
and made a good growth of roots, it was pre¬ 
pared to stand the winter. It can be easily de¬ 
duced from this—what has never been prac¬ 
ticed in this section—that the drilling in of a 
small amount of fertilizer would give the 
wheat a start that would make the difference 
between a good crop and a failure in such a 
season as the past one. In good seasons doubt¬ 
less the advantage would be barely percep¬ 
tible. 
The field contains 
4.666 acres. As already 
stated we aimed to 
drill 1% bushel of 
seed to the acre. The 
yield proves to be the largest ever raised at the 
Rural Farm, being, according to the thrash¬ 
er’s statement, 40 bushels per acre, with the 
exception of a low part of the field where 
it was badly winter - killed — a portion 
that cannot be drained. The grain weighs 
64 lbs. to the bushel. This wheat 
makes a good quality of flour—better 
decidedly than that of Fultz or Clawson, 
and quite equal to that of Silver Chaff. We 
have raised the Armstrong for many years, 
in plots, but never before upon any consider 
able area. It will be remembered that this s 
the variety chosen as the mother of our rye- 
wheat hybrids as well as of many of our cross¬ 
bred wheats. The straw is as strong as that 
of Clawson or Fultz or Diehl-Mediterranean, 
the heads beardless, chaff white. It is cer¬ 
tainly a desirable wheat for all sections where 
it thrives as it does at the Rural Farm. 
j r 
