MIRACULOUS HARVESTS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2676, 28 July 1913, Page 8

MIRACULOUS HARVESTS.

At first glance there seems something fabulous about the report of a method of cultivation whereby twenty seeds of grain yield an increase of over 700,000, and that within a year But the tale is sober fact, accredited by competent and trustworthy witnesses. A detailed account of the method is given in a late number of Lc Correspondent (Paris). While the prodigious increase mentioned was obtained in an exceptional case with a personal attention and care making it equivalent to “laboratory work,” it is declared that practical experiments on a larger scale were very successful. We read: “The principle is simple. It consists in preparing seed-beds in widely spaced lines on very mellow land; then at the end of two months dividing the tufts springing from each grain, replanting each of these rooted shoots thus detached; and finally in hoeing and earthing up these new plants many times in such manner as to provoke at all the points brought into intimate contact with the earth the growth of numerous adventitious shoots, each of which bears an ear. It is, in sum, a combination of * slipping,’ transplanting, and pruning. The system is, in truth, not new, but a very ancient one, used immernorially by the Chinese, and to it is due the enormous yield of their fields, which have boon treated like gardens. While our peasants throw broadcast handfuls of grain on the harrowed earth, offering rich pasturage to pillaging birds and rodents, the Chinaman, after furrowing the earth with his wooden ploughshare, without turning it, crumbles each lump in his hands till it is like line powder. This doing ai planting time he walks slowly doy, n each furrow carrying a grant-drill which is a marvel of ingenious simplicity. “Picture to yonrsell two pointed ploughshares about tu.-nty inches a pat and connected by a trniisvorse bar supporting a hopper tilled with giaiu. I nun which issue two slender bamboo lubes designed to coiuhte the grants so Huu each will drop in the wake ol one oi the shares. The diameter ol each iube is just great enough to alhev tlm passage of one grain at a Lime without lotting it drop until it leceoes the impulse of a slight shock given by means ol the handles which comph te the apparatus. The sower ntisnes the drill front of him, inclining it now to the right and now to the lelt, in such sort that each inclination causes the issue of a single seed, which is instantly pressed under by the track ol one loot or the other. 1 lie seed-plot thus made in the form of a ‘ quincunx, each planted grain being at a distance. “At the end of a few weeks germination begins. M hen the young plant is ten or twelve inches in height, theie are a score of stalks about its stem each provided with a fringe of rootlets. The farmer covers each with loose earth by means of careful hoeing, thus raising the level of tho furrow, Each stalk again proliferates, and there are soon fifteen to twenty new stalks around its stem, which detach themselves. All are the indirect issue of a single grain, which proves therefore to have been the parent of 300 to 400 stalks, each bearing an ear. Transferring this method to experimental fields and perfecting it, it has been found possible to separate from the stem each of the primitive stalklets with its own roots, transplant it, and then treat in he same way of tho new plants thus formed. “Thus Philippe Miller planted a seed in the experimental gardens at Cambridge in June, 1776; in August, 1777, he obtained as a harvest from this single seed 576,000 seeds. For unknown reasons the experiment was not repeated until June 12, 1003. On this date our own compatriot Bellenoux treated in this manner twenty grains ol wheat planted in one square yard of carefully mellowed earth. On August 9 ho separated and replanted the numerous stalklets springing from tho earth. On October Bof the same year, then on March 3 of the next year, and finally on May 13 he repeated the operation. On July 30, 1904, each of ids twenty grains had produced 604 clumps bearing 28,388 ears, containing a total of 709,701 grains. This prodigious harvest corresponds to a yield of nearly three tons to the acre.” To the objection that this was essentially a laboratory method, and therefore impractical, it is replied that recent experiments have proved its success on a largo scale; “Toward the end of October, 1911, a Frenchwoman, Mile. Louise Chevalier, residing at Tiffis, in the Caucasus, planted one grain of barley. As soon as the young plant issued from the soil it was earthed up with care, and produced fifteen stalks. In February and March, 1912, two new earthings produced ninety-nine stalks. By May 12, the single grain had produced 212 stalks, and on June 10 our compatriot harvested 236 stalks, 212 ears, and 5300 grains. This yield of 530,000 polecat. encouraged her to put acres of land under cultivation. One oi our Tiffis readers, to whom we owe these interesting figures, tells me that the field is now (December) in its first earthing, and that from a planting of one grain in a space eighteen inches square there have sprung 20,000 clumps, each of twelve to fifteen stalks, which will be correspondingly multiplied this spring. Further still, an Algerian colonist, Mr Bourdiol-Humbert, has been planting wheat and oats in tho same fields for five years, without tho application of manure. He makes his furrows thirty-six inches apart and plants the seeds therein at a distance ol twenty inches from each other. Ihcit he harrows the earth constantly, sirring the soil, destroying its parasites, and keeping it pulverised. l’<ir five years, without fertilising, without distribution of crops, and without rotation, he lias harvested an average yield of 1800 pounds of oats per acre and 1600 of wheat; while his neighbors yield was a scant 830 pounds of oats and 500 of wheat.” The writer concludes by warmly urging the undertaking of similar experiments in France, and they would be doubtless equally fruitful of good m America.