1899 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
6o7 
WHEAT GROWING IN CENTRAL NEW YORK. 
HOW TO MAKE MOST OF THE CROP. 
Great Value of Careful Soil Preparation. 
SMALLi YIELDS COMMON.—The wheat crop in 
this section is usually not large or profitable. Ten 
to twenty bushels are an average crop, and if we 
did not get a better seeding with wheat than any 
other crop, but little would be sown. After oats are 
out of the way, farmers are not so busy, and can 
prepare a small field for wheat profitably, even 
though the yield is small. The flour bill for a family 
of hearty children takes considerable cash, and can 
be paid in labor spent on the field, easier than in 
other ways. The smallness of the yield has produced 
in the minds of the farmers an idea that extra care 
or expense will not pay, and they do no more work 
than is absolutely necessary to get the seed in the 
ground. This is wrong, for no other crop grown 
shows greater results for the extra, intelligent labor 
spent in preparing the ground. Last Fall, I put in 
practice some of the ideas advocated by T. B. Terry, 
and taught in the short course at Cornell, and have 
just thrashed a fine crop, for this section; the best 
acre, probably, yielded 35 bushels. 
THE PROPER SOIL.—The field should be drained, 
either naturally or artificially, so 
that the wheat will not be thrown 
out by freezing and thawing in 
Spring. The gravelly loam, which 
gives good corn and potatoes, 
gives best results here, but a mix¬ 
ture of a little clay, not enough 
to make the soil bake, is better. 
Nearly all of the wheat is sown 
after oats, but a meadow is bet¬ 
ter. If a field is poor or “out of 
humus,” the sod can be turned 
under and the field seeded again 
at once, taking but the one crop 
of wheat “between grass”; this 
method is good for the wheat 
and field both. The wheat plant 
sends out its roots near the sur¬ 
face, and requires a very fine, 
equally-divided surface soil. The 
coarse, lumpy, hastily-prepared 
fields one often sees here are not 
conducive to root growth, and 
dry out quickly. The roots keep 
near the surface, are too warm, 
thirsty, and are stopped by the 
lumps and cracks. Wheat makes 
its growth in cool weather, and 
the finer the soil the less it is 
affected by the hot Fall weather. 
HEAVY FALL GROWTH.—In 
some sections, wheat is said to 
make too much growth in the 
Fall, and has to be pastured off, 
but there is no such danger here. 
The stronger and larger we can 
get our wheat plants in the Fall, 
the surer we are to have them 
come through without winterkill¬ 
ing. The plowing should be done 
as early as possible, the first day 
after the oats are off, and only at 
a medium depth. We keep the 
harrow in the field, and use it 
every night on the day’s plowing. 
This mellows and smooths the 
surface, preventing somewhat the 
drying, and restoring the power 
to draw moisture from the subsoil. The soil should 
be well turned, so that all refuse and stubble shall be 
covered, and the Hessian flies find nothing to harbor 
in or under. If they are numerous, a small strip 
should be sown as early as possible, for a trap. They 
will lay most of their eggs in this larger, earlier 
wheat. The only other remedy I know of is to delay 
sowing until after a hard frost, which sometimes 
comes too late for best results. 
PREPARATION AND SEEDING.—The field should 
be rolled and harrowed until the surface is as fine and 
dry as road dust, two inches deep, and the under soil 
as fine and compact as a moist cheese, not hard, solid 
subsoil, but crumbly cakes of loam. If wheat is sown 
too deep, it will throw out a root system from the 
stalk, above the kernel, nearer the surface, and ail 
below will rot off. The teeth of the drill run on the 
firm soil just beneath the dust surface, leaving the 
seed in the moist earth, and at a uniform depth. The 
drilled wheat gives better results than sown with us, 
and our soil requires some fertilizer for success, 
which can best be applied with the drill at the time 
of seeding. Farm manures should be applied before 
plowing, unless very well rotted, or else be spread on 
as a mulch during Winter. The latter method has 
given splendid results, and insures a good catch of 
clover. 
Two bushels of seed are usually sown, and very few 
fields are thick enough at that for large yields. One 
cannot get bushels of grain without plenty of heads, 
which are not obtained if the grain is thin on the 
ground. The better the soil, preparation, and seed, 
the less the amount required; even a half bushel has 
given a large yield, but not on soil which will not 
cause excessive stooling. Allowance must be made 
for winterkilling, grubs, Hessian flies, single stalks, 
poor soil, and poor care in preparation, and enough be 
sown to have a thick, even stand left, if a good crop is 
obtained. Ninety-nine are too thin for the one too 
thick. 
VARIETIES AND CULTURE—Clawson and Fife 
do well, but Gold Coin seems to do best on my farm. 
In some fields where the straw is weak, and lodges, a 
coarser, stiff-strawed variety can be used. A large, 
tall, coarse variety, and a short, fine, slender-stalked 
variety, which fills in between and under, give large 
yields, and the mixture produces better results than 
either alone. I would harrow and roll, at least once 
per week from the plowing time till the sowing. I 
firmly believe that every additional working adds five 
L 
EAF AND BUD OF STUARTIA PENTAGYNA. 
See Rurai.isms, Paoe 010. 
Fig. 231. 
bushels to the yield, and the field is cleared of weeds, 
whose seeds are induced to sprout by the working and 
rolling. The last thing before drilling, roll the 
ground, and thus secure an even depth in sowing. If 
very dry, roll immediately after sowing, which aids 
germination, and covers the grass seed. Many claim 
that, if left without rolling, the ridges will hold snow, 
and add cover to the plants in Winter, but I cannot 
discover any advantage here. 
Any time from September 1 to October 1 will do, but 
the earliest-sown wheat is nearly always the best. 
Many claim that grass seed sown at the time of sow¬ 
ing the wheat will injure the wheat, but with me, if 
one-half the usual quantity of Timothy and clover is 
sown, it works this way: If the wheat is good, the 
grass does no harm; if the wheat is poor, thin or win¬ 
terkilled, I have a fine seeding, so it is good either 
way. The rest of the grass seed is sown in the Spring. 
Without counting the advantage of our excellent seed¬ 
ing, and remaining value of fertilizer, our wheat crop, 
at 75 cents per bushel, gives us a fair profit, where 
before, there was a loss. Thanks to excessive cul¬ 
ture. c. E. CHAPMAN. 
Tompkins County, N. Y. 
KILLING THE WILD ONION. 
THE USE OF GAS LIME. 
Other Forms of Lime More Efficacious. 
The wild onion has become such a troublesome 
weed here that, on some farms, it has become almost 
impossible to make good butter or use the milk, 
especially in the Spring. To plow and harrow as in 
ordinary farm work, scatters the onions, and makes 
them more numerous. I was told of a very effectual 
way to exterminate them by an old English gardener, 
the way they do it in England. He said, put on gas 
lime, and that will kill them outright. Having a 
piece badly infested with them, I had, about Septem¬ 
ber 15, one load of gas lime put on as an experiment. 
To my surprise, it killed them entirely. That was 
about eight or nine years ago; it also made the grass 
grow much better, and for years, I could see just how 
far the gas lime extended. I believe about the middle 
of September is the proper time to use it, as the heat 
of the Summer is about over, and the wild onions are 
in a weak state about that time. Another experiment 
with gas lime was on my garden, but here it appeared 
to do an injury, and I do not want any more on the 
garden. Gas lime can be had for nothing, except the 
cartage; gas makers are glad to get it drawn away. 
In using the lime, that which has 
been exposed to the weather long 
enough to expel the smell of gas, 
and is bleached white, is best; 
new lime may kill the grass. 
Orange Co., N. Y. m. d. r>. 
PROPERTIES OF GAS LIME.— 
Gas lime, when fresh from the 
works, usually contains several 
compounds which are poisonous 
to vegetation. If well exposed to 
the air for several months, it 
gradually loses its poisonous 
properties. If applied when these 
desirable changes have been only 
partially effected, some plants 
may not be particularly injured, 
while others would suffer serious¬ 
ly. This is due to the unequal 
sensitiveness of plants of various 
kinds toward poisons of different 
nature. As an example of this, a 
quantity of zinc in a soil, which 
wholly destroys lettuce, injures 
barley to only a limited extent. 
Based upon such facts, sulphate of 
iron and other solutions have 
been used to destroy certain 
weeds, with the expectation that 
the desirable plants would not be 
materially injured. In the case 
of gas lime, it varies so much in 
composition, and it is so difficult 
to control and recognize the ex¬ 
tent of the changes that have re¬ 
sulted, that it hardly seems ad¬ 
visable to recommend its use for 
the destruction of special weed 
pests, unless it is where all vege¬ 
tation is to be destroyed. Gas 
lime should be applied in the 
Autumn to the surface of land 
that is to be tilled the following 
Spring. It may be spread broad¬ 
cast at once, or left till Spring in 
small heaps, though broadcasting 
is the safer plan. 
Gas lime varies widely in com¬ 
position in many particulars, but especially so in re¬ 
gard to the form in which the lime is present. In one 
sample, it may be mostly as calcium carbonate; in 
another, as calcium hydrate (water-slaked lime). 
Samples usually contain considerable lime in the form 
of calcium sulphate (land-plaster or gypsum). This 
cannot perform all of the functions of slaked lime, 
hence is less valuable. 
Other objectionable or poisonous sulphur com¬ 
pounds are, also, present if the lime has not been 
thoroughly acted upon by the air. Air-slaked lime 
and burned lime, if well slaked and thoroughly har¬ 
rowed into the soil when fine, are far more efficacious 
than gas lime. That this must be so will be obvious 
when one remembers that success in the use of lime 
depends, to a large extent, upon the fineness of the 
particles and the extent to which they become in¬ 
corporated with the soil. prof. h. j. wheeler. 
Rhode Island. 
The British Government has asked a Texas firm for 
figures on 500,000,000 feet of Yellow pine lumber, to be de¬ 
livered at Gulf ports. If this order be placed, i* will re¬ 
quire steady work in all the mills in the Yellow-pine belt 
of the Southwest for over a year, to fill it; the weight of 
the lumber would be 800,000 tons. It is believed that much 
of it would be sent to South Africa. 
