THIN SEEDING OF WHEAT.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 21, 3 December 1874, Page 3

THIN SEEDING OF WHEAT.

Now that the fall wheat crop is ready to be sown, it is interesting to recall what has been the result of thin sowing in every instance in which it has been done with a purpose to test the value of the practice. It is no new thing, at least in England. A century and D a-half ago Jethro Tull, who will always be remembered as the author of the principle " that thorough tillage is able to secure the profitable growth of any crop year after year in succession," and for the success with which he carried his theory into practice for more than thirty years, introduced thin seedino* by sowing the land in alternate strips or rows of three feet, cultivating the spaces between the rows. In this way he raised larger crops than when the whole of the land was sown. Mr Smith, of Lois Weedon, also sowed wheat in three rows a foot apart, leaving a bare strip of three feet between every three rows, and produced during twenty years at the rate of 70 to 80 bushels per acre of sown land, or 35 to 40 bushels per acre of land, taking sown and unsown together. The amount of seed used by Mr Smith was one to two pecks per acre. Mr Hallet, of Brighton, who cultivated a farm of 600 acres, has seeded 100 acres at the rate of one bushel of seed to six acres when early sown, increasing the seed for the. latter sowings to one bushel per acre. His crops reach 48 to 50 bushels per acre. A field of poor land, which was supposed to be. too poor to raise wheat, was sown by, Mr Hallet at the rate of one peck of wheat per acre, and produced 48 bushels per acre in return. The peculiarity df this crop is said to have been the equal height of the ears, and length of the straw, the well-known defect of our ordinary wheat crops being the short straw and poor. ears, numerously intermingled with the longer ones. Mr Piper, a miller of Essex. for twenty-five years, raised wheat consecutively,, seeding at , the rate ; of six quarts per acre. The :, seed was put in by the hoe, and no , plough, was .used during these years. The produce . was, always more than upou the adjoining farmsj and one year f reached 56 bushels: per. acre.- Mr, Mechi [ of Tiptree Hall, hasi raised large crops •> from seeding of half a bushel to one bushel,. per .acre, the latter quantity 1 being the -utmost limit. Some of the , Tiptree crops, of wheat have reached 64 [. bushels per aere. .Mr. Miller, the Curai tor of the Botanical Gardens: of Cambridge, reported/ in the f* Transactions of the Royal Philosophical Society" the following : In June, 1866, he sowed some wheat, of which he took up , one plant in August and separating it into eighteen parts replanted them.

j These plants were taken up in September and October, and divided and replanted • there were then 67 plants.. In March and April of sttie next year, these plants were again divided into 500 plants and replanted. The whole number of ears produced from the single plant thus treated was 21,100, and the grains numbered 576,840, and measured 3f pecks. This instance shows in a remarkable manner the wonderful tillering capability of a wheat plant when room is provided and time granted for it. Reduced to figures, the case stands thus : an acre of land contains 43,560 square feet. A bushel of good wheat contains about 600,00.0 grains. If one bushel of wheat be sown per acre, and every seed produces a plant, there will be 14 stools of wheat to the square foot, or one to every three inches apart each way This clearly gives insufficient room for the plants to spread ; but if every plant produced but one ear of fair size, there would bo at least 40 to 45 bushels of wheat per acre; and the same crop would be reaped if only five pints of wheat were evenly sown upon an acre and every seed grew and produced the very moderate number of 14 stalks and ears from each plant. Clearly there is a great waste of seed in some way or other, and the fact remains equally clear that more things are possible in agriculture than we have reached at present. — A Pennsylvania Farmer.