HARVEST NOTES

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 72, 30 January 1879, Page 2

HARVEST NOTES

[CANTERBURY TIMES.] To farmers of long standing in the country it may seem a waste of ■ words to offer any advice as to the stage of ripeness at which the grain is fit for the reaper, but it must not bo forgotten that our rapidly increasing agricultural population includes many who have had no opportunity of forming an opinion on this vory importantpoint. With regard to wheatitisamistake to wait until the grain is quite hard. After the milk has disappeared, and the berry has attained a fairly tough consistency, it is fit for the reaper. _ In some seasom, especially if tho ground is wet and cold, the grain is apt to bo more advanced than the straw, and the appearance of the crop is very deceptive, but if the grain is ripe the straw may be left to tho influence of the weather while standing in the stook, only in this case the danger of heating in the stack must not be lost sight of. Oafs arc more apt to shrivel than wheat, and must therefore be allowed to arrive at a more ' advanced stage of ripeness before "they are cut down. Sometimes, owing to asecond growth, it is most difficult to tell when to begin reaping, but this harvest there are probably few cases' of that kind, there having been no rain to induce an aftergrowth. Iu reference to that most troublesome of crops, barley, a state of dead ripeness before reaping is indispensable. It will not ripen hi the stook, and is apt to heat and turn black, in which case it is hard to know what to do with it. It is a crop that cannot well.be grown on a very largo scale, a3 it requires the most careful management from first to last, and it is only under specially favorable circumstances that it proves favorable to the growers, Economy of time is of course a main desideratum in harvest-time, still it would bo well if sonio of our farmers occasionally called to mind the old adage about haste not always being followed by a corresponding amount of speed. Not an hour of .line weather should be lost. To this every farmer will assent, nevertheless we have no hesitation in saying that many fine hours are lost. For instance, there are a a good many dewy mornings in the course of tho harvest, during which "there can be done nothing in tho way of stacking until the sun have been up for several hours, Now, a farmer who understands his business, and is alive to his own interests, will employ some portion of this timo in preparing a bed for the stacks, and will perhaps take the opportunity of laying on an extra thick layer of straw, a pre" caution which lie will certainly not repent of at 'threshing .time. There are, however, grain growers so little in the habit of looking ahead that they will fail to see the necessity of putting any bedding at all under the stacks.. It may be that they intend to thresh out immediately, and the ground being dry, there is no danger of the stack taking harm from beneath. But, what is a very likely contingency, tho threshing machine which thoy expected to get goes off in another direction, and wet weather, which was not reckoned upon, in the.meantime makes its appearance, and our confiding agriculturist finds out his mistake, when it is too late,