SELECTION AND CLEANING OF SEEDS.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7253, 8 March 1889, Page 2

SELECTION AND CLEANING OF SEEDS.

LEADER. There is no more important matter in connection with good farru management, or one which more conspicuously distinguishes the careful farmer, than the proper selection and industrious cleaning of the seed from which his crops are to be obtained, as on the success or failure o* what he sows depends in a great measure his whole year's income. Yet how seldom do we find that even ordinary care i 3 exercised, or a thought given to what should form part of the ordinary routine work on every well managed farm in the colony. A sublime indifference is exhibited by the vast majority of farmers regarding the character, quality and cleanness of the seed they use, and such a word as selection has no meaning for them when used in connection with this necessary work. The result is that pure seed is most difficult to obtain, and very little reliance can be placed on the names given to any particular kinds of grain. A parcel of wheat labelled, say Purple Straw, will be found to contain, perhaps, half-a-dozen other varieties, each of which may be good enough as a wheat, but not what was required. The want of care in selection must produce deterioration in the quality of the product. Common sense and a moment's consideration should impress this fact on the minds of all farmers. How have the splendid flocks and herds been bred ? Is it not entirely by the careful and intelligent selection of the best animals to breed from ? The sheepbreeder fixes in his own mind the particular type of animal which he hopes to and he sets himself assiduously to the task of practically illustrating his ideal. After years of patient study and waiting his object is, perhaps, attained, but the same care, the same intelligent and watchful selection, and the same unwearying attention to maintain the standard of excellence, is still required or deterioration will rapidly ensue. It is only by the judicious selection of the beet animals of the particular type required that improvement can be made or maiutained.and any departure from this rule must inevitably result in loss. The same rule applies with equal force to horse or cattle breeding, and the position as a breeder of any man who would use a half bred stallion or mongrel bull in his stud or herd would be quickly and properly estimated by the general public, As in the animal, so also in the vegetable kingdom. The gardener improves the quality of his plants and flowers by careful cultivation and selection, but the grain grower seems content year after year to sow seed the vitality of which has been impaired by deterioration in the fertility of the land on which it is grown. If he purchases the grain it is enough for him to know that he has obtained it cheaply; he does not trouble about the quality of the soil on which it was grown, aod be takes no pains to free it from any weed seeds which it may contain. More than likely the seed which he scattered on his land is of three or four different varieties, some of which ripen early, others late, yet all are harvested at the sanae time, the result; being a falling off in the yield and an inferior sample of grain. How seldom do we find-that any special attention is given to cleaning seed. In the northern districts, where w.heat Iβ the staple product, and the stripper the most generally used harvester, the usual practice is to reserve a sufficient quantity of grain from the general crop for the following year's seed requirements. The grain has been run once through the winnower, which, good machine though it undoubtedly is in its present form, is altogether incapable of extracting all the wild oats or cracked and inferior grain at the one operation. Yet no further trouble is taken, and farmers wonder why it is that their crops stool so badly or the new land so quickly becomes a nursery for wild oats and other weeds. The finding of a corn screen on a farm id a novel experience to an agriculsultural reporter, and the farmer's remedy for the inferiority of lm seed is to sow 60 thickly as to make allowance for misses or weakness of growth. On many farms sowing operations are suspended for two or three years, the waste from the stripper being considered a sufficient seeding, and the scratching of a scarifier or a set of harrows all the preparation the land requires for the next season's crop. It U such farmers as these who most loudly assert that farming does not pay. On every farm in the colony a plot of land should be specially prepared and sown with carefully selected grain in order to obtain seed for the following season. A beginning might first be made in a small way. In every field of corn a percentage of ears will be noticed that show a superiority over those around. They will be found to proceed from vigorous plants that have stooled well, and they will probably exhibit early ripening qualities. Hy selecting the finest oE these, and planting the grain at a sufficient distance apart, sped of a superior quality, and in all probability a fixed type, will be obtained. The Steinwedel wheat, which proved so successful at the Dook'ie College of Agriculture, was obtained in this wuy by a farmer in South Australia, after whom it is named. He selected a few ears which he noticed in the ordinary crop, and by careful cultivation he has succeeded in producing what promises to be the most valuable wheat for the northern districts of which we are yet possessed. Last season it ripened a fortnight earlier than any other oats at the college, and gave a yield of thirty bushels per acre, although the rainfall for the year was only a trifle over eight inches. This is only an instance of what might be done by selection. Other wheats" just as valuable for the cooler districts mieht be discovered in a similar way, and at all events one important result would follow the general adoption of the coarse indicated, a marked and decided improvement in the quality of the seed. Agricultural societies might very we.l step in and extend their present limited sphere of usefulness by offering such prizes as would induce farmers to pay more attention to the parity and quality of their grain. If instead of giving valuable monetary consideration to senseless and cruel exhibitions of rough-riding and steeplechasing, prizes were offered for the best and purest growing crops of grain of specified kinds, much gpod might be done and farmers gradually educated up to the point of. appreciating the importance of the subject which forms the heading of this article. The Nuinurkah Agricultural Society, which is one of progressive in the colony, has recognised its duty in this respect, and annually offers prizes for the best and purest twenty acres of purple straw wheat and Chevalier barley. Such a proceeding would bear unlimited extension, and might with advantage be taken up by every agricultural society in the colony. Prizes could be offered for the particular kinds or varieties of grain which experience has shown to be best adapted for the districts over which the societies exercise control, and consideration should be given to those who discover or cultivate new varieties which are likely to ultimately develope valuable qualities. Wheat growing is at a low ebb just now, and it is fashionable to descant on the unprofitableness of the industry; but before advising its abandonment it would be wiser to promote in every possible way such means as are calculated to raise the value of the product and ensure a heavier yield per acre. It is the fashion for farmers to entirely blame the seasons for the inferiority of their yields, bat it is a face that failures are as often traceable to the negleec of the fundamental principles of farming as to the weather. Good cultivation and the selection and cleaning of seed would raise the average return of the* colony by at least 5 bushels per acre, and this probably means the difference between profit and loss. If wheat growing i* not to be abandoned, attention must be paid to these details; we must cultivate better, and we must secure more proline and profitable kinds of grain, if we are to continue competing with the cheap labor of India and Russia. We poseeas great natural advantages, and have farm machinery and implements equal to any in the world. If, therefore, we can increase our yields there is little to fear in the competition. This can be done; the work of doing it rests solely i with the farmers themselves.