- 
| tity of ripe and full seeds. 
_ the morning or very late in the afternoon. 
|| mowing with the cradle scythe is, on the whole, 
| the most economical method; and this lays the 
wheat manuring for a wheat crop can be success- 
ful only on the principle of supplying carbonace- 
ous, saccharine, and amylaceous elements, and 
that whenever a soil does not already contain a 
sufficiency of alkaline and nitrogenous elements, 
these must be supplied to it either in the form of 
farm-yard dung or in that of some similarly 
constituted manure. See the articles Wuxa7, 
Aukattes, AMmontaA, Sarts, Bonrs, Farm-Yarp- 
Manure, Guano, and Anrimat MAnurzs. 
When buckwheat is raised as a grain crop, it 
must be harvested at the time of its possessing a 
maximum of ripe seed. Its succession of bloom- 
| ing and ripening is so long, that the first-formed 
seeds may not be so full as the next-formed, 
while either a large proportion of the earliest 
_ must be allowed to shed, or a large proportion of 
the latest cannot possibly come to perfection. 
A good cultivator, therefore, will carefully ex- 
amine his crop at different stages of its ripening 
progress, and determine to reap it only when it 
appears to possess the largest attainable quan- 
Buckwheat may be 
reaped either by pulling, by sickling, or by mow- 
ing. Pulling is preferred by some cultivators on 
account of its being less likely than the other 
methods to shake out the ripe seeds; and it is 
recommended to be performed either early in 
But 
crop as regularly down in swathes as if it were 
| laid by hand. The scythe is “put out” in the 
| mowing; and, notwithstanding the singular ease 
with which the succulent stems are cut, the 
scythe requires to be swung by a tall and strong 
man. A good workman will, with apparent ease, 
mow four or five acres ina day. ‘The crop may 
either be tied up in sheaves or gathered into 
small heaps as is often down with pease; but in 
either case, it must be protected from the depre- 
dations of birds, and allowed to remain in the 
field till it is perfectly dry. The crop, if it re- 
tain any considerable degree of moisture, is ex- 
ceedingly liable to subsequent fermentation in 
the mass, and to a consequent depreciation in 
the value of its flour ; and hence, in addition to 
being well dried in the field, it ought to be 
stacked with intervals of bush faggots, so as to 
keep up a circulation of air, and to afford vent 
to any heat which may be generated. Yet Mr. 
Main of Chelsea says, “ If put together a little 
green or damp, it does not much signify; for 
though ever so mouldy, the grain is never dam- 
aged, and the more mouldy it is, the easier it is 
thrashed.” It ought to be thrashed early in 
winter; and it is the easiest of all barn-work for 
the thrasher,—the slightest blow separating the 
grain from the straw, and no care being required 
to bind the straw or ‘to assort it. The straw 
makes excellent litter in the fold, and forms bet- 
ter manure than any other kind of litter. The 
produce of the grain has sometimes been so great 
BUCKWHEAT. 
060 
as seven quarters per acre; but, even in favour- 
able circumstances and upon good land, it pro- 
bably does not average more than between three 
and four quarters. 
The flowers of buckwheat are rich in honey; 
and both for that reason, and on account of their 
long succession, they form a valuable resource | 
for an apiary. The farmers and cottiers of France | 
and Germany greatly appreciate buckwheat crops | 
for their honey, and sometimes carry their bees 
to them in the same manner as to blooming 
heathlands.—The straw of buckwheat, gathered 
before the grain is quite ripe, dried in the sun- 
shine, freed from the grain, moistened in heaps, 
left to ferment and decompose till it assumes a 
bluish hue, and then gathered and baked into 
sun-dried or stove-dried cakes, constitutes a good 
and convertible blue colouring matter. “ On 
the cakes being boiled in water, the water as- 
sumes a strong blue colour, which will not change 
either in vinegar or sulphuric acid. It may, 
however, be turned into red with alkali, into a 
light black with bruised gall-nuts, and into a 
beautiful green by evaporation. Stuffs dyed blue | 
with this solution, which is to be used in the | 
same way as vegetable matters of a similar spe- | 
cies employed in dyeing, become of a beautiful 
and durable colour.” 
The grain of buckwheat is a principal ingre- | 
dient in the distillation of German gin; it is the || 
basis of the beer of the Germans, which is said | 
to be well-flavoured, generous, and wholesome; 
it is largely used by the distillers of Dantzic in 
producing the celebrated liquor which the Poles 
call goldenwasser, and the French eau de vie de 
Dantzic; it 1s bought up from British farmers, 
and imported in vast quantities from Holland, 
and other countries of northern Kurope, by the 
gin-distillers of England for the manufacture of 
their ‘ blue ruin ;’ and it has been malted and 
used in the brewing of British beer, but is found 
to produce a liquor which, though palatable, is 
unwholesome and dangerously intoxicating. A 
writer in the Magazine of Domestic Economy | 
remarks, “ The use of barley malt has been re- | 
sorted to in preference to any other, because 
barley is supposed to contain a greater propor- i 
tion of saccharine or fermenting matter than | 
almost every other grain besides wheat, or, at all 
events, than any other grain of a similar quality 
and price. Now, buckwheat is most fruitful in 
the saccharine principle, even much more so 
than barley, than which also it can be raised at 
considerably less expense. It is therefore cer- 
tainly worth the while of both the maltster and 
the distiller to give buckwheat a fair trial, should 
it ever be sufficiently cultivated in this country 
to afford them an opportunity of doing so; and 
there is no doubt that it will be so cultivated 
when actual experiment shall have given evi- 
dence of its eminent usefulness.” 
The flour of buckwheat is white and fine, and 
serves well for cakes, pastry, and various other 
