Lib, Scientific Soil Culture Series RICHARD A. HASTE, Editor Manual of Soil Culture — Campbell Wheat— TenEyck IN PREPARATION The Soil—lTillard Plant Growth— Haste Soil Tillage— Campbell Soil Biology — 'Bo I ley Orchard and Small Fruits — Stephens Plant Breeding — Buffum Irrigation and Drainage — Haste Manual of Soil Culture, two volumes — Campbell Farm Management — Haste Campbell Soil Culture Publishing Co, Lincoln, Nebraska WHEAT Practical Discussion of the Raising, Marketing, Handling and Use of the Wheat Crop, Relating Largely to the Great Plains Region of the United States and Canada BY A. M. TEN EYCK epartment, Iowa State of AsronCT.vac.- P~:e re State A'gricuitnnl t. Han FIRST EDITION . C A V F S E L L l°lA Copyrighted by Campbell Soil Culture Pub. Co. 1914 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introduction 9 II. Habits and Types 15 III. Seed Improvement 29 IV. Soil, Climate and Cultivation . . 38 V. Wheat Seeding and Cultivation . . 59 VI. Harvest and Yield 70 VII. Threshing and Marketing .... 81 VIII. Wheat Enemies ....... 92 IX. Maintaining Soil Fertility .... 100 X. Wheat on the Pacific Coast ... 122 XI. Wheat Growing in Canada ... 134 XII. Culture Methods 146 XIII. Rotation of Crops 157 XIV. Seeding Machinery 163 APPENDIX Individual Practices' How to Run a Binder ': 169 187 Index , 192 PREFACE This little book deals largely with the wheat culture of the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada, but the writer has attempted also, to give some general information on the raising, marketing, handling and use of the wheat crop. This book is not technical but treats the subject in a practical way and is written especially for the study and use of those who are engaged in wheat farming. During my fifteen years experience in wheat farming, five years in North Dakota and ten years in Kansas, in connection with the state agricul- tural colleges, I have gained some special knowl- edge of culture methods and practice which may be of value to others who are engaged in the wheat growing business. In preparing the following pages I have also consulted other authorities on the subject and have frequently quoted from wheat books and bulletins. I wish to refer especially to " Cereals in America" by Thomas F. Hunt, and the "Book of Wheat" by Peter Tracy Dond- linger as being among the best authorities on the subject. For the illustrations shown in figures 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 22, I am indebted to the courtesy of the Kansas experi- ment station and the Ft. Hays branch station. Perhaps this book is hardly worthy of a formal dedication, but I wish to present it with my heart- iest good wishes to the dry land farmers of the western plains and the Pacific slope, hoping that it will help them to solve the great problems of western agriculture, help to make dry farming profitable and permanent and thus establish the homes and happiness of those splendid men and women of the great west. A. M. TEN EYCK, Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa. Jan. 1, 1914 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Wheat is the world's greatest cereal crop. Both corn and oats exceed wheat in bulk, but by weight the four great cereals rank in the order of their production as follows: Wheat, corn, oats, rice. It may be of interest to observe that in bulk or bushels oats ranks first, corn second, wheat third, and rice fourth. But as a food for human con- sumption, wheat ranks first, rice second, corn third, and oats fourth. Rice and wheat were the grains of the early eastern civilizations. Corn was the great food plant of the natives of Central and North America. Rice is today the chief food of half of the people of the earth. THE WORLD'S PRODUCTION OF CEREALS In the United States the order of production is in part reversed, corn ranking first, wheat second, and oats third by weight; but in bulk, oats ranks secorid and wheat third. Rice is grown to only a limited extent in the United States but it is the principal grain crop of China, India, Japan and other Asiatic countries. The agricultural year book gives the total yield of these grains in the world and in the United States in 1910 as follows: (9) 10 WHEAT United State's Crop World's Crop 1. Wheat. . . . 695,443,000 bushels. . . 3,650,952,000 bushels 2. Corn 3,125,713,000 bushels. . . 3,672,636,000 bushels 3. Oats 1,126,765,000 bushels. . . 4,146,512,000 bushels 4. Rice *710,289,000 pounds. . . 190,186,068,000 pounds *Crop of 1909. The world's crop of wheat in 1910 was produced as follows: Bushels North America . 855,433,000 South America . 159,753,000 Europe 1,952,531,000 Bushels Asia 508,152,000 Africa 72,886,000 Australasia 102,197,000 Total 3,650,952,000 LARGEST WHEAT PRODUCING STATES The states producing more than 25,000,000 bushels of wheat in 1910 with the average yields per acre for the ten year period, 1901-1910, are given as follows: State Total Production 1910 (Bushels) Average per Acre Yield 1901-1910 (Bushels) Missouri 25,130,000 14.31 Oklahoma Washington Pennsylvania Ohio Illinois North Dakota 25,363,000 25,603,000 27,697,000 31,493,000 31,500,000 36,105,000* 12.56 22.34 16.93 15.95 15.66 12.08 Nebraska 39,515,000 17.87 Indiana South Dakota Kansas Minnesota 40,981,000 46,720,000 62,068,000 91,080,000 15.19 12.75 13.64 13.55 United States 6f5,443,000 14.28 *Drouth cut the North Dakota crop in two in 1910. The wheat countries, producing more than 100,000,000 bushels in 1910 are given in order of their total production as follows : WHEAT 11 Bushels Bushels Russia 755,695,000 Canada 149,990,000 United States. . . . 695,443,000 Germany 141,884,000 British India 357,941,000 Spain 137,448,000 France 268,364,000 Argentina 131,010,000 Austria Hungary. 255,162,000 Roumania 110,761,000 Italy 153,337,000 PRODUCTION OF WINTER AND SPRING WHEAT Wheat is most largely grown in cool, temperate climates. Its winter growing habit and early maturing season make it especially well suited to the higher and drier sections of the middle and western states. The varieties adapted to fall seeding are grown in the warmer wheat sections, but there are many spring sorts adapted to the colder climates. Of the states named, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Washington grow prin- cipally spring wheat. The other states grow largely winter wheat. In the United States much more winter wheat than spring wheat is grown. The production of each in 1911 is given in the year book as follows: Winter wheat 430,656,000 bushels Spring wheat 190,682,000 bushels Total 621,338',000 bushels DISTRIBUTION OF THE WHEAT CROP OF THE UNITED STATES The amount of wheat exported by the United States has decreased rapidly during the last ten years, even while our production was increasing. This is due to the great increase in population. The distribution and consumption of wheat in 12 WHEAT the United States for the past fifteen years is shown in Table I. If the present rate of increase in the home consumption of wheat continues our surplus for export will be wiped out in six years, and the United States will become an importer of wheat and flour rather than an exporter. WHEAT PRODUCTION IN CANADA In 1912, Canada produced 199,236,000 bushels of wheat on 9,758,400 acres or an average yield of 20.42 bushels per acre. A somewhat larger crop was reported for 1911, viz., 215,918,000 bushels. Most of this wheat was grown in the western provinces, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The total production of these three provinces is placed at 183,322,000 bushels in 1912 and 194,083,000 bushels in 1911. The acreage and production of each province in 1912 are given as follows:* Province Manitoba . . Acres 2,653,100 Total Crop Bushels 58,899,000 Saskatchewan .... 4,891,500 93,849,000 Alberta . 1,417,200 30,574,000 Total 8,961,800 183,322,000 The total acreage grown in the three provinces in 1911 was reported as 9,301,293 bushels. The wheat acreage of Canada has doubled in five years, and the average yield per acre has also increased, exceeding the average acre-yield in the United States by more than five bushels per acre *Total yield for Canada 1913, 210,998,800 bushels. WHEAT °l » ti HO II •3,'S 0,0) O O O < J2ooo< fliilii; .-OOOOOOO< ^SOOOOOOOi ooooo ooooo ooooooooooooo< ^oooooooooooo< OCMOJICOOOOOOOOCO t^ o^^ rJ co" »c" q> a> g> >c o TI< oi Tti o «£> N os «o eo r-i ic" «o" oo" o" t-T eo ^ oi 13 14 WHEAT in 1911 and 1912. This increased acre-yield is due in part to favorable seasons and also to the practice of better culture methods and to the planting of adapted, early-maturing varieties. There has been an unprecedented development of the Canadian northwest since 1903. If this rate of development continues for the next ten years, Canada will rank with Russia and the United States as one of the three greatest wheat producing countries of the world. It is estimated that there are in the three western provinces about 180,000,000 acres available for cultivation, the greater part of which is adapted to wheat growing. Of this area, not more than 6% is at present under cultivation. There is enough good wheat land in the western provinces alone when this land is brought under cultivation, to produce two billion bushels of wheat annually, and allow one-third of the land to lie fallow each year. To the north of Alberta and Saskatchewan in the territories of Mackenzie, Keewatin, Ungava and Yukon lies an immense area of more than 900,000,- 000 acres, some of which will eventually be cul- tivated in wheat, as shown by the fact that wheat has already been successfully grown at several points within this region. WHEAT 15 CHAPTER II HABITS AND TYPES BOTANICAL RELATIONS Wheat belongs to the family of true grasses (Gramineae). The grass family is a large and very important one because of the great number of species that supply both grain and hay. They include all the standard varieties of small grains, corn, grain-sorghums and all grasses used for hay and fodder. The cultivated grains and grasses furnish the staple foods for man and beast the world over, HABITS AND STRUCTURE OF PLANT The leaves of wheat are slender and ribbon-like and attached to the stem at the nodes in the form of a sheath covering the internodes. The stems are round and usually hollow; height, three to five feet. You have noticed the mass of leaves clustered close to the ground when the plants are young and observed how quickly they are carried up off the ground when the wheat begins to stem or "boot." Fall sown grains produce only leaves until early spring, then the plant stems lengthen, not only by growing at the tip but the internodes grow in length also. When a field of grain is blown down or lodged, it may "straighten up" due to the fact that the cells on the under side of the stem increase and grow faster than the cells on the upper side. Also, renewed growth occurs at the nodes to strengthen the stem. 16 WHEAT FLOWER AND FRUIT Wheat flowers have pistils and stamens but no colored showy parts. The stamens and pistils are protected by greatly shortened leaves called glumes or palea. Short spikelets containing one to three small flowers are closely attached to the fruiting stem (rachis) and form a close compact head or spike. It has been found that the anthers shed their pollen and the stigmas become moist before the flowers open, and are thus normally close fertilized. There is probably little or no natural crossing in wheat. Hays found that wheat flowers open and close in the early morning, the operation consuming only twenty to forty min- utes.* GERMINATION AND ROOTS When the seed sprouts, the shoot grows upwards and forms a second growth of roots that are per- manent, the first set eventually dying. The length of the first shoot varies according to the depth of soil covering. If the seed is covered deeply it will grow to within one to two inches of the surface before forming the permanent roots. Too deep planting may therefore weaken the plant and reduce the growth and yield. The root system of wheat and all other cereals and grasses consists of slender, much-branched rootlets. There is no a tap root. *Minnesota Experiment Station Bulletin No. 62. WHEAT 17 STOOLING In wheat and nearly all cereals and grasses more than one stem is formed from each seedling. This is called stooling or tillering. It is a characteristic to be encouraged in small grains. It is due to the branching of the stem below the ground just after the permanent roots are formed. Each branch soon forms its own roots. Cool, damp weather during the early growth of the grain favors stooling, as does also a fertile soil. Furrow planting (listing) of small grains seems to favor stooling, but in the case of corn it appears to retard the tendency to " sucker." Thick seeding checks the vigor of individual plants and reduces stooling. However the thickly planted grain may mature earlier and more evenly, and may make larger yields. The character of soil, the moisture supply, temperature and altitude affect the stool- ing habit, the cooler drier climates being favor- able. The amount of seed sown- per acre varies. Thin seeding gives hardier, stronger plants, larger stools with stronger and deeper feeding roots, and is preferred in dry climates and for the less fertile soils. THE GRAIN The wheat grain is a dry, indehiscent fruit which has the pod and a single seed incorporated in one body. Such a fruit is called a caryqpsis. The grain is about two and a half times as long as it is broad, with a hairy apex, oval in shape but slightly compressed laterally, with a furrow or groove on the side opposite the embryo caused by 2 is g-a WHEAT 19 a deep infolding of the pericarp or bran. The physical parts of the wheat grain and their average proportions are as follows: Seed covering or bran 5.0 % Aleurone layer enclosing endosperm and embryo 3.5% Embryo 6.5% Endosperm or main portion of grain 84.0% The endorsperm is the portion from which the flour is made. It is made up largely of starch cells but contains also about 8 to 10% of gluten. >Fhe aleurone layer is composed of a single row ofTarge cells known as aleurone or gluten cells, but this part is not included in the flour. The bran is made up of six layers of cells, the three outer layers being the pod or pericarp, and the inner layers the coverings of the ovule or seed proper. The embryo may be divided into the vegetative portion which contains the miniature first leaves and roots of the new plant, and the scutellum or absorbent organ which at germination , dissolves the substance of the endosperm and transfers it to the vegetative portion. The embryo con- tains a high percentage of ash, about 16% of fat, 33% of protein and considerable quantities of carbohydrates, mainly sugar. VARIATION IN SIZE Bessey estimates the cubic content of a wheat grain to be twenty to thirty cubic millimeters. Richardson found an average of 12,000 grains in a pound of wheat. There were variations of 8,000 to 24,000 grains to the pound. Thus one bushel of seed in one case would be equivalent 20 WHEAT to three bushels in the other, so far as individual grains are concerned. The standard (and gen- erally legal) weight per bushel (2,150.42 cu. in.) of wheat is sixty pounds. The measured bushel may vary in weight from fifty to sixty-five pounds. The color of the grain varies from light yellow to dark red. Hardness of grain and high nitrogen content are usually associated with a deep red or clear amber color. SPECIES AND VARIETIES There are seven or eight different species or sub-species of wheat. Only one of these types is generally grown in the United States. This is the common milling wheat of the world, the botanical name of which is Triticum sativum vulgare. It includes practically all of the winter wheat and most of the spring wheat grown in this country. The species Triticum sativum durum, commonly called durum wheat or maca- roni wheat, which is used largely in the manu- facture of macaroni, also succeeds well as a spring wheat in the drier portions of the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas. There are several divisions of the species Triticum sativum vulgare such as the hard and soft wheat; and either of these may be divided into several groups as red hard wheat, white hard wheat, red soft wheat and white soft wheat. Furthermore, there are bearded and beardless types of each of these groups, and while some varieties have smooth chaff others have a rough or velvety chaff. There are red chaff and white WHEAT 21 chaff varieties also. The varietal names number into the hundreds, and often there is no marked characteristic to distinguish the variety. Carleton has tested, studied and described 245 leading varieties of wheat out of one thousand or more samples secured from all parts of the world.* TYPES OR GENERA The wheat genus includes five other types as follows: Einkorn Triticum monococcum Spelt Triticum sativum spelta Emmer Triticum sativum dicoccum Poulard wheat Triticum sativum turgidum Polish wheat Triticum polonicum These types of wheat were largely cultivated in ancient times in eastern Asia, Egypt, Greece and Italy. They are usually hardy and drouth- resistant, and are grown to a limited extent today in dry areas and cold climates but more for feed for livestock than for human food. These grains produce an inferior type of flour. It may be of interest to note here that the "Alaska" wheat, much advertised a few years ago by promoters as a wheat of wonderful yield- ing power, belongs to the Poulard group. It is a variety having branching spikes and is also called "Multiple Head Wheat," "Egyptian Wheat" and "Wheat of Miracle." Thomas F. Hunt in his "Cereals in America," speaks of this variety as a "sport having no value." *United States Bulletin No. 24, Division of Vegetable Physi- ology. 22 WHEAT THE BEST VARIETIES TO PLANT A large number of varieties of winter wheat have been tested at the Kansas experiment station during the past ten years. Among the better producing varieties as shown by these trials are Kharkof, Crimean, Turkey Red, Malakoff, Ghirka, Theiss, Weisenberg, Defiance, Bearded (winter) Fife, Fultz, Fulcaster, Mediterranean, Currell and Zimmerman. It is important to observe that of the varieties named, the Ghirka is the only hard red wheat with bald or beardless heads which has proved to be a good producer. The last five varieties named are of the soft wheat type; the Fultz, Fulcaster, and Mediterranean are bearded, the other two are beardless. The first nine varieties named are the hard red wheat, and all of these but the Ghirka are of the bearded Turkey type gen- erally grown in Kansas and throughout the western winter wheat belt. The adaptation of varieties varies for different conditions of soil and climate. The reader is referred to his state experiment station for information regarding best producing varieties for a particular state or locality. TYPES OF SPRING WHEAT The more important types of spring wheat are the Fife, Bluestem, Velvet Chaff, Durum and Club Head. There are a number of minor varieties of each of these types. Fife is a beardless, smooth chaff, hard wheat. There are both red and white WHEAT 23 % grained varieties. Bluestem is a beardless velvet chaff wheat with grain of medium hard quality and reddish color. Velvet Chaff is a trade name for several varieties of bearded soft wheat. Club Head is a soft white wheat with short, stubby, very compact heads, usually beardless, with smooth chaff. All of the types and varieties named above except the Durum wheat, belong to the group "Common Wheat," Triticum sativum vulgare. The Club Head is usually classed as a sub-species, Triticum compactum. Carleton has given the natural groups of wheat and the names of all leading varieties adapted for growing in the different wheat districts of the world.* MILLING VARIETIES Two general types of milling wheat are grown in the United States, hard wheat and soft wheat. The great plains region is particularly adapted for growing hard red wheat of excellent quality, the best bread making wheat in the world. Nearly half of the wheat grown in the United States is grown in the north central states west of the Mississippi river, viz: Minnesota, Iowa, Mis- souri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas. These states are mainly in the hard wheat belt, as are also Oklahoma and Texas. The Rocky mountain states also grow some hard wheat. Soft wheat is grown in the more humid climates, mainly in the north-eastern and north central ' United States Bulletin No. 24, Division of Vegetable Physi- ology. 24 WHEAT states east of the Mississippi river, and on the Pacific coast. The red soft wheat is grown in the eastern states, and the white soft wheat is grown mainly in Washington, Oregon and Cali- fornia. HARD AND SOFT WHEAT CHARACTERISTICS Hard wheat has a grain of a more or less clear amber color. When cut, the texture appears very compact and firm. Soft wheat has an opaque color, the kernels are usually plumper and lighter in weight than hard wheat, and when broken the grain presents a white, starchy appearance. It usually contains less gluten than a good quality of hard wheat, and is deficient in gliadin, the Fig. 3. — A field of beardless spring wheat, North Dakota. WHEAT 25 plastic part of gluten which gives the tenacity to dough and affects its rising quality. The best quality of light bread cannot be made from soft wheat flour. Hence, soft wheat flour is used more largely for pastries. But a certain proportion of soft wheat is used to blend with hard wheat in the manufacture of the best patent flour. VARY WITH CLIMATE The hardness apd texture of the grain may vary not only in different varieties but with the climate and season in which the wheat is grown. Hard wheat varieties which characterize dry regions become softer when grown in moist climates. It becomes necessary therefore, in the more humid sections where hard wheat is grown for the farmers to change seed wheat every few years, securing the new seed from the drier sections farther west and north where the best quality of hard wheat is produced. Recent experiments in breeding wheat indicate that the hard char- acter may be maintained in the more humid sections by " head-row" breeding by which pedi- greed strains are produced from a single head or plant which has retained the character of hardness even under the adverse conditions.* DURUM OR MACARONI WHEAT Durum wheat is a bearded type of wheat of which there are several distinct varieties, varying in color of chaff, smoothness of glumes, etc., but 'Bulletin No. 156 Kansas Experiment Station, by Roberts & Freeman. 26 WHEAT all having the characteristically hard, flinty grain which is particularly adapted to the manufacture of macaroni; also flour from this wheat is now being used to make bread, which is somewhat darker in color than bread from patent flour, but it is nutritious and has an agreeable taste and some people prefer it to ordinary wheat bread. As a spring wheat it is rapidly coming into use in the northwestern states. It is more hardy and more productive than ordinary spring wheat. Brought from the dry, hot steppes of Turkestan and southeastern Russia where it has been grown for hundreds of years, it is decidedly a dry farm- ing crop and it is proving to be hardy and well adapted to the severe climate of the northwest. It is not so safe a crop and is less productive than winter wheat in the middle west and in the south- west. Spring wheat is not well adapted for grow- ing in Kansas and the states farther south. MILLING PRODUCTS Wheat is almost exclusively used for the pro- duction of flour from which various forms of human food are made. Varying with the kinds, quality and grade of wheat and the milling pro- cesses, the out-turn of mill products are about as follows : Flour. . . . 65 to 80% (usually 70 to 75%) Bran 15 to 20% Shorts and middlings. . 5 to 8% The by-products of wheat are highly prized as food for all classes of livestock, yet within the memory of persons now living (1913) the bran WHEAT 27 spout of grist mills emptied its contents into the river. Flour is usually run in two or more grades: 1. Patent flour, a clear white grain. 2. Baker's flour, slightly yellow in color. 3. Low grade flour, dark, soft grain and lumpy, containing particles of bran. Graham flour is unbolted wheat meal or the whole wheat ground into a meal, nothing being removed. Entire wheat flour is wheat meal from which the coarsest of the bran has been removed. The weight per bushel is a test in part of the milling qualities of wheat. "Heavy" wheat tests fifty-nine pounds or more per bushel. The lighter wheat gives a larger out-turn of the less valuable products, bran and shorts. Common causes of light wheat are unadapted seed, lodging, premature harvesting, dry hot winds, attacks of insects and diseases (smut and rust), sprouting in the shock, etc. COMPOSITION OF WHEAT AND ITS PRODUCTS The value of wheat as a human food is due to its palatability and the attractiveness and great variety of forms which can be made from it, as well as to its abundant supply of nutritious sub- stance. The composition of wheat and its pro- ducts is given as follows:* "Hunt's Cereals of America, page 113. 28 WHEAT TABLE II CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF WHEAT AND ITS PRODUCTS (PARTS IN 100) Wheat Facent Flour Bran Shorts Mid- dlings Water.. Ash Protein (Wx6. 25) Crude fiber Nitrogen free extract or carbohydrates. . . Fat 9.07 1.79 14.35 1.68 70.37 2.74 11.48 .39 12.95 .18 73.55 1.45 11.9 5.8 15.4 9.0 53.9 4.0 11.8 4.6 14.9 7.4 56.8 4 5 12.1 3.3 15.6 4.6 60.4 4 0 Phosphoric acid .82 .18 1.22 AMOUNT OF BREAD FROM FLOUR The value of flour depends upon the amount and quality of bread which it will produce. The amount of bread also depends upon the condition of baking as regards the amount of water in the dough, size of loaves, temperature of oven, etc. The United States department of agriculture, chemical bulletin No. 4, reports the amount of bread baked from different flours handled alike, as varying from 129 pounds to 140 pounds from each hundred pounds of flour. The flour with the least percent of nitrogen produced the smallest percent of bread. Each pound of wheat will pro- duce about a pound of bread, since the percentage of flour in wheat averages about 72%. WHEAT 29 CHAPTER III SEED IMPROVEMENT ADAPTATION OF SEED Planting good, pure seed of well bred wheat of the type or variety best adapted to the local con- ditions is one of the most important factors in successful wheat culture. It is well for the grower to keep in touch with the state experiment stations where the varieties are being continually tested and improved in order to secure the best seed of the best variety for his state or locality. The western plains south of the Dakotas is the land of the hard red winter wheat, and the Turkey or bearded type is generally best adapted for growing in this region, but there are different varieties or strains, some of which are superior to others in quality, hardiness and productiveness. The Kharkof (Turkey) wheat has been proved to be one of the best producing varieties at the Kansas experiment station. A MONEY CROP Wheat is the great "money" crop of a large part of the dry farming area, yet it is not especially a drouth resistant crop. Its success is more largely due to the fact that the crop grows and matures during a part of the year when drouth and hot winds are least apt to prevail. On this account also it makes advantageous use of the moisture stored in the soil by summer tilling and by 30 WHEAT careful seedbed preparation. It is true that western farmers have been depending too much upon a single crop, and continuous wheat cropping is rapidly exhausting the soil fertility. The writer would not discourage the growing of wheat on this account but rather encourage the practice of better farming methods, described in these pages, by which more wheat of better quality shall be produced on fewer acres without depleting the fertility of the soil. Farmers throughout the hard winter wheat belt are urged to plant hard red winter wheat of the Turkey type and to secure seed of an improved variety. It will pay to plant well bred seed of the best producing varieties, as has been proved by the tests at the experiment stations and the actual experience of farmers. CLEANING AND GRADING It is advisable to clean seed grain of all trash and very light kernels. Heavy, plump seed ger- minates quickly, grows more vigorously, and gives greater assurance of a regular stand and a large yield. However, carefully graded, shriveled grain of a hardy, adapted variety may often be pre- ferable for planting to well developed seed brought from a different climate. There are many good makes of fanning mills and grain graders. The writer prefers for general use the ordinary fanning mill with proper sieves and screens for removing weed seeds and small and broken grains, and which allows for a strong blast which will remove the WHEAT 31 chaff and dirt and light weight kernels which are likely to be deficient in vitality. TREATMENT FOR SMUT If the seed wheat is infected with smut, it should be treated with a solution of formaldehyde to destroy the smut spores which adhere to the wheat kernels. (See page 96 for full treatment.) Treating for smut and careful grading of seed may not only increase the yield, but by such a practice it is possible to maintain a good variety of wheat and improve both the yield and quality of grain adapted to the soil and climate. All farmers should take these precautions to increase their annual yields and to maintain and improve their seed wheat, but more rapid and more permanent improvement may be secured by individual selection of plants and careful breeding. WHEAT IMPROVEMENT The best varieties of cereals are strains that have been continuously and carefully selected and thus adapted to the soil conditions and ac- climated to the belt in which they are grown. The Turkey wheat owes its hardiness and adaptation for growing in our western plains region largely to the training which it has received on the steppes of Russia and Turkestan. The Russian wheat introduced into the hard wheat belt of this country has a decided advantage over the soft wheat types of the eastern states which are not adapted to dry climatic conditions. It is doubtful, however, 32 WHEAT if new importations from the old world will give any advantage over the best local strains which have been developed in our western states from the early importations. FROM DRY TO MOIST CLIMATE High yielding varieties of wheat from moist climates generally give lower yields in dry climates than acclimated or native sorts, and vice versa, when the conditions are extreme. The quality of hard wheat in the more humid sections of the hard wheat belt is improved by planting seed grown under drier climatic conditions, and if the change in climate or soil is not too great, the yield may not be decreased. Such changes of seed from a dry section to a moister climate should be made along the same latitude or from the north rather than from the south because of the later maturing ing season of the southern grown seed. Also in changing seed, care should be taken to secure strains of the best producing varieties because of the greater inherent tendency of pure strains to produce well, even under changed climatic conditions. HEAD-ROW METHOD OF BREEDING The more valuable new varieties of cereals that are now being introduced have resulted from the careful multiplication of seed from selected in- dividual plants. In the improvement of small grain, these plants are selected by a process of testing and elimination known as the "head-row" Fig. 4. — Head-row breeding, Kansas Experiment Station. Note 3 difference in head-rows. 34 WHEAT method of breeding, similar to the "ear-row" method of breeding corn. A large number of the choicer heads of a high yielding, well-adapted variety are selected from the field. Many of these heads which are inferior in points of structure, yield and quality, may be discarded, but the grain from the better heads is saved and planted in individual rows in the breeding plot. The growth of the plants, hardiness, yield and quality of the grain produced by each head is thus determined and the seed from the best yielding "head-rows" may be used to plant "increase rows" on the next year "increase plots" and so on until enough seed is secured to plant a large field with the new or pedigreed strain. This may be accomplished in a relatively short period of time. In the experience of the writer, the seed from a single head of wheat containing thirty kernels planted in the breeding row has produced a pound of good seed for planting the second season. If this pound of wheat be planted, and its product planted the next year and so on, multiplying at the rate of thirty-fold each year, it will produce thirty pounds of wheat the first year, fifteen bushels the second year, and 450 bushels the third year, or enough grain to plant 400 to 500 acres. Thus a single head of wheat planted in 1913, and its product planted each suc- ceeding year, may produce enough seed in 1916 to plant several hundred acres of the pedigreed strain. WHEAT 35 WORK OF THE EXPERIMENT STATION Pedigreed, pure bred strains of wheat or other crops are apt to be more or less locally adapted, hence local breeding centers are necessary in order to produce or secure locally adapted, high yielding varieties. The average grain grower may not take the time to make " head-row " tests to improve his seed grain but this work should be carried on at the experiment stations and the pedigreed seed increased and distributed to the farmers, who should grow it separately and keep it pure and sell the crop for seed to their neighbors, thus rapidly increasing and distributing the im- proved seed throughout the community and throughout the state. This method of improving our cereal grains depends simply on discovering the great individ- uals which are present in every well-adapted variety, and making them the progenitors of a new or superior strain of that variety. Its practice and application are giving remarkable results. It is particularly valuable for securing rapid im- provement in dry farming crops. The old method of adapting crops to the dry farming conditions by natural selection was too slow because the field-elimination process allowed many of the weaker plants to persist and bear seed each year. The new method discovers the few hardy in- dividuals at once and eliminates the weaker types so that the increase may be only from the hardy, high-producing type. 36 WHEAT MAINTAIN PURITY AND QUALITY OF IMPROVED SEED Farmers who are growing improved wheat should take great care to keep the seed wheat pure in order to continue the distribution of the good seed and to maintain the yield and quality of the grain grown on their own farms. One of the principal factors which causes deterioration in wheat is the crossing or mixing of different varieties or strains. Common sources of mixing are from volunteer wheat which occurs when fields are reseeded to wheat year after year; or mixing may occur in the harvesting or threshing where two or more varieties are grown on the same farm or on neighboring farms. Careless seedsmen and dealers also often allow the varieties to become mixed in grading and handling, so that under present conditions it is quite difficult to maintain purity in seed grain. COMMUNITY SEED The breeding and introduction of pedigreed strains will eventually lead to the establishment and growing of one of the best producing, pure bred varieties of each cereal grain in each com- munity or in each locality or section with distinct climatic or soil conditions. Thus there may be established a " community seed" which will be planted by all the farmers in that community. This will be a great advantage over the present practice of growing many varieties, some of which are often poorly adapted to the local conditions. WHEAT 37 Because of the mixture of types and varieties and because of the want of uniformity in type and quality, all of the grain sells on the market at a relatively low price, fixed by the average quality of the crop rather than by the best grain which the locality produces. The general planting of a "community seed" would reverse these conditions and would result in larger yields and better prices and a greater prosperity for every farmer. The farmers in each community should get together and organize and adopt a "community seed." Fig. 5. — Roots of spring wheat grown under semi-arid con- ditions at Edgeley, North Dakota. Length of roots, four feet. 38 WHEAT CHAPTER IV SOIL, CLIMATE AND CULTIVATION CLIMATIC CONDITIONS Most of the wheat of the world grows in regions with cold winters. California, Egypt and India are exceptions. On the whole, however, wheat has a very wide climatic range. It is grown suc- cessfully in northern Russia and in the Canadian northwest, and has matured even as far north as Dawson, Alaska, 65° north latitude, about two hundred miles from the Arctic circle. In the direction of the equator we find the limits of successful wheat culture between 20 and 25° north and south latitude. Wheat, however, is grown successfully on the mountain plains of Columbia and Ecuador, at the equator 10,000 feet above sea level. While wheat has a very wide geographical range, it nevertheless demands a similar climatic condition during its growing season, viz: A moderately cool and dry temperature. This is secured in the culture of the crop by the use of winter and spring varieties, and by regulating the time of seeding so that the period of growth and maturity shall occur during the cooler part of the growing season in the warmer climates. SOIL REQUIREMENTS Generally speaking, wheat requires a rather heavy soil, inclining to clayey. The lighter or sandy soils are not so well adapted for growing WHEAT 39 wheat, however soft wheat succeeds well on bottom lands of a loamy, light texture. To produce the best quality of hard wheat requires fertile soil, land well supplied with nitro- gen and rich in the mineral elements of plant food. The soil should be well balanced in fertility. If there is an over-supply of nitrogen caused by heavy manuring or by growing alfalfa or clover, there is likely to be a rank growth of straw which may lodge and the heads fail to fill, resulting in light, shrunken grain. A fertile soil which is well supplied with organic matter and humus will produce a much larger yield of wheat under similar conditions of culture and rainfall than a less fertile soil or one lacking in vegetable matter. The humus will take in and hold more water, the organic matter acting as a sponge to absorb and retain the moisture. Also the fertile soil will supply a stronger solution of plant food, thus producing a greater growth with the same amount of water than an infertile soil. Thus the fertilized soil has the advantage in two ways: first, it absorbs and holds more moisture and supplies it to the growing crop; second, it makes better use of the soil water, the plant requiring often 50% less water because of its stronger solution of plant food than the soil low in fertility and lacking in organic matter. Therefore, it is necessary to rotate crops, grow legumes and use manure and fertilizers to main- tain and increase soil fertility, also to conserve soil moisture by proper culture methods in order to secure the largest yields of wheat. Moreover, 40 WHEAT special care must be given to preparing the seed and root bed in order to secure the proper soil conditions and suitable environment in the soil for germinating the seed and feeding the young plants. • THE SEED BED The proper starting of a crop is an important factor in its production. A germinating seed requires the presence of moisture and air and a Fig. 6. — A good seed-bed. A cross-section of the plowed por- tion of a properly prepared seed-bed. The soil is mellow but well settled, the furrow slice making a good connection with the subsoil. WHEAT 41 favorable degree of heat. The plantlet is nour- ished at first by the food substance,, stored in the mother seed, but this is soon used up and the little roots quickly spread out in the prepared soil to gather the moisture and available plant food which may be found there. The young plant grows and is soon well established if the soil is fertile and the seed bed has been well prepared. HOW PLANT FOOD IS MADE AVAILABLE All fertile soils contain an abundant supply of plant food elements, but the compounds in which they exist are usually in an insoluble condition in the soil, a provision of nature which prevents the wasting of plant food, insures the permanency of soil fertility and the continued productiveness of the soil for ages, providing man does his part. The plant food of the soil is gradually liberated by the action t of weathering agents which cause the rock particles to break down and disintegrate, and is made available by the action of the soil bacteria which assist in the processes of decay. Thus chemical changes take place by which the insoluble plant food is gradually changed into soluble compounds, the elements of which become available to the plants when absorbed by the roots. This "digestion" of the plant food in the soil by which it is made available to plants, at least so far as bacteria are concerned, is favored by the same conditions which are essential for the germination of seeds and the growth of plants, viz., the soil must be warm, moist and well aerated. 42 WHEAT PROPER PHYSICAL CONDITION The fertility of the soil is developed by proper tillage. The physical condition of the soil is nearly always more important than mere "rich- ness." A finely divided, mellow soil is more pro- ductive than a hard, lumpy one of the same chemi- cal composition because it retains more moisture, renders plant food more available and affords a more congenial and comfortable place in which the plants may grow. Fig. 7. — A cloddy seed-bed, plowed too dry, resulting in a very unfavorable condition. WHEAT 43 Fig. 8. — A two-row lister with eight horses listing from eight to nine inches deep, Hays, Kas., Experiment Station. The seed bed for wheat and other small grains should be mellow at the surface, but firm and well settled below the depth at which the seed is planted. This provides the best conditions for supplying the moisture, air, and heat to the ger- minating seed and young plants. Deep plowing or deep listing should be encouraged, but it should be timely so that the soil may settle and fill with moisture; and such cultivation should be given after plowing or listing to secure a favorable phys- ical condition of the seed bed. Plowing the land early, well in advance of seeding is essential, especially in the dry farming areas of the western plains. Early plowing com- pared with late plowing has given largely in- creased yields at the Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska experiment stations. (See Tables III and IV.) 44 WHEAT FIRMING THE SEED BED When land is allowed to lie for a considerable period after plowing before the crop is planted, the action of the rains and the necessary surface cultivation usually pack and firm the soil to a sufficient extent to make a good seed bed. The use of the subsurface packer is most essential on late spring plowing, when the purpose is to plant at once after plowing. For sowing fall wheat, the subsurface packer may be used to advantage, if the plowing precedes the sowing by a short interval. By setting the disks rather straight and weighting the harrow, a disk harrow may be used as a substitute for the subsurface packer. MAINTAIN SOIL MULCH— DESTROY WEEDS It is essential that sufficient and proper cultiva- tion be given to destroy weeds. This is more Fig. 9. — The Campbell subsurface packer. WHEAT 45 important than to maintain a soil mulch, since weeds exhaust both the soil moisture and available plant food. If a proper soil mulch is maintained, however, the weeds will be kept in subjection. It is advisable to weight or ride the common harrow in order to cause it to stir the soil to a sufficient depth and prevent the slicking effect which is apt to result from light harrowing. A smooth, finely pulverized surface produced by continuous, light harrowing defeats the purpose of the cultivation, since soil in such a condition will shed heavy rains, causing a waste of the water that should have been stored in the soil. By rendering the surface too fine and compact an unfavorable seed bed is produced and the proper aeration of the soil is prevented. Thus during the interval between crops it is often advisable to use the lister or disk harrow in order to keep the surface of the soil open and mellow. CONSERVATION OF SOIL MOISTURE In the more humid climates it is often necessary to artificially drain the land in order to keep the soil in proper physical condition and cause it to produce profitable crops, but throughout the great plains region the conservation of the soil moisture is the first and most important problem in successful farming. The most essential part of soil moisture con- servation, the most important factor in dry farm- ing and the one which has been most greatly neglected by our western farmers, is getting the rain water into the ground and safely storing it 46 WHEAT in the subsoil to be used by the growing crop. The firming and pulverizing of the soil to restore capillarity, and the proper cultivation to maintain the soil mulch are each without avail, unless there has been stored in the deeper soil a sufficient amount of moisture to supply the growing crop in times of drouth. SOIL MULCH The plan of producing a soil mulch to conserve the moisture has been taught and more or less successfully practiced for many years; but in very dry years this method must fail because there is no moisture stored in the soil to be conserved by cultivation. The moisture should be caught and stored at all times of the year, but especially during the Fig. 10. — Following the binder with a disk harrow to catch and conserve moisture. WHEAT 47 interval between harvesting and planting. The plan should be, in the preparation of the seed bed, to put the soil in the most favorable condition to receive the rain and carry it downward into the subsoil. This is provided by disking soon after harvest or late in the fall, or early in the spring. Deep plowing a long time before planting leaves the soil mellow and rough, enlarges the water reservoir, and favors the absorption of heavy rains. But the best plan to store moisture, as determined in part by experiments conducted by the writer and the experience of a number of western farmers, is the method of listing the soil in deep furrows and high ridges soon after harvest or in the fall after the crops of corn or kafir have been cut and removed. If this work cannot be accomplished in the fall, winter listing or early spring listing is desirable on such lands as shall again be planted to intertilled crops or which may be summer fallowed in preparation for fall wheat. THE LISTING METHOD FOR WHEAT SEED BED In preparing the land for winter wheat list the ground with the ordinary corn lister as soon after harvest as possible. The listed furrows are run about three and one-half feet apart, very much the same as when the lister is used for planting corn. Later, when the weeds have started, the soil is worked back into the listed furrows by means of the harrow or disk cultivator. Several cultivations are usually required with a spike tooth harrow or disk in order to level the field and bring it into good seed bed condition. 48 WHEAT Fig. 11. — Disk lister cultivator used for filling listed furrows. Once over with the disk cultivator is sufficient to fill the furrows, the further work necessary to prepare the seed bed being given with a common harrow. In preparing the ground for spring wheat, the listing should be done soon after harvest and the soil worked back into the furrows again before the ground freezes. Thus it may settle and firm up during the winter, when by harrowing or shallow disking in the spring the seed bed may be put into favorable condition for planting. On land which is inclined to drift in heavy winds it is better not to level the ridges until spring as the furrowed soil will resist blowing. WHEAT 49 ADVANTAGE OF LISTING METHOD In a dry climate this method of preparing the seed bed for wheat has several advantages. The cultivation of the land soon after harvest tends to conserve the moisture already in the soil, the furrows catch and store the rain and the later cultivation clears the land of weeds and volunteer wheat and leaves a mellow soil mulch to conserve the moisture which has been stored in the subsoil. The early and continuous cultivation of the soil favors the action of the soil bacteria and the development of available plant food. Also, because of the furrowed surface, a larger volume of soil is exposed to the action of bacteria. By pursuing this method the farmer may cul- tivate a larger area when the soil is in good con- dition to cultivate, since listing is done more rapidly than plowing. Soil which is opened out in listed furrows is in the best possible condition to catch and store the rain, which as it falls soon reaches the bottom of the furrow and is rapidly absorbed directly into the subsoil without having to pass through six or eight inches of finely pulverized compact surface soil. Also the ridges may be cultivated soon after a heavy rain, thus covering the wet furrows with mellow soil and "sealing" the reservoir and preventing the escape of the stored moisture. SUMMER TILLING The listing method is also adapted to summer fallowing (summer tilling), the plan being to keep the surface furrowed and in a mellow condition 4 50 WHEAT to receive and store as much of the rain as possible in the fall, winter and early spring. Later in the summer, the land may be leveled, plowed and worked back into a firm, well pul- verized seed bed, suitable for sowing winter wheat. In preparing a fallow for seeding spring wheat, the furrowed condition should be continued until late summer or early fall. The listing method Fig. 12. — Late fall cultivation of summer fallow with twelve shovel, two-row corn cultivator to conserve moisture and pre- vent drifting. WHEAT 51 is best adapted to fairly level land but it may be used successfully on a sloping field by running the furrows across the slope. Or in the case of a field sloping in different directions, it is possible to practice "contour" listing, viz., listing around the hill, making the furrows always at right angles with the slope. Thus the rain which falls on the field will be caught in the furrows and led straight downward into the soil, rather than down the slope by surface drainage. Experiments in preparing the seed bed for winter wheat, when wheat was grown each season, compared with late plowing, early plowing, early listing and summer fallowing, were carried on for six consecutive years (1906 to 1912) at the Hays branch experiment station in western Kansas. The crop of 1909 was entirely destroyed by hail. The average yield of five crops by the several methods is given in the following table. TABLE III Giving yield of wheat for five years, 1906 to 1912, and percentage of moisture in soil at seeding time for 1911 and 1912, Fort Hays branch experi- ment station, western Kansas. Method of Prepara- tion Yield per Acre Total in Five Years Average Yield Moisture in 6 Feet of Soil at Seeding Time Average Differ- ence in Yield Late plowed, Sept. . . . Early plowed, July. . . Early listed, July Summer fallowed .... Bushels 59.9 83.3 104.4 58.9 Bushels 12.0 16.7 20.9 11.8 Percent 13.7 15.6 16.4 19.8 Bushels —4.7* check 4.2 —4.9* *Decrease in yield. 52 WHEAT The land prepared by the listing method yielded 21.1 bushels more wheat per acre in the five years than the land which was plowed early and otherwise given approved treatment. Late plowing yielded 23.4 bushels less than early plow- ing and 44.5 bushels less than early listing. The fallowed area (cropped alternate years) gave 24.4 bushels less grain per acre in five years than con- tinuous cropping with early plowing, and 45.5 bushels less than continuous cropping with early listing. These results are not favorable to alter- nate summer fallowing, and indicate that a less frequent fallow would pay better. In Table IV are compared the yields secured at the Oklahoma experiment station by plowing at different dates in preparing the seed bed for fall wheat. TABLE IV Date of plowing test in preparing seed bed for wheat, Oklahoma experiment station (Bulletin No. 65). Preparation Date of Plowing Yield per Acre Early July 19 31.3 bushels Medium Aug. 15 28.5 bushels Late.. ..Sept. 11 15.3 bushels THE SUMMER FALLOW In regions where the rainfall is not sufficient to produce a paying crop each year by continuous cropping, the system of summer fallowing with "summer tillage " (keeping the soil mellow and free from weeds) should be practiced every three WHEAT 53 or four years or in alternate years, if this is neces- sary, in order to store a sufficient supply of mois- ture in the soil to insure a profitable crop when wheat is planted. The cultivation of the fallow not only conserves the soil moisture and clears the land of weeds but also favors the development of the fertility of the soil, so that a larger amount of plant food may become available to the crop following the fallow. METHODS OF FALLOWING There are several methods of summer fallowing practiced in the several states, but the method which has given uniformly good results at the Montana, Nebraska and Kansas experiment sta- tions is to plow deep, six to eight inches, rather late in the spring, and then give sufficient cultiva- Fig. 13. — Listing the soil to prevent drifting and to conserve moisture on summer tilled land. 54 WHEAT Fig. 14. — Soil that has been listed in the best possible condition to catch the rainfall. tion thereafter to maintain a soil mulch and de- stroy weeds. Such treatment puts the soil in ideal condition for seeding in the fall or spring, but the continuous cultivation leaves the surface soil finely pulverized and smooth, which favors soil washing with heavy rains and soil drifting in strong winds. Some practice plowing twice, rather shallow in the spring and deeper the second time about midsummer, giving surface cultiva- tion after the second plowing sufficient to prepare a good seed bed. Summer tillage may exhaust the plant food of the soil faster than continuous cropping, since WHEAT 55 there is apt to be a waste of the soluble plant food elements by wind and drainage. On account of these facts summer tillage should not be generally practiced except in regions of very light rainfall and in the western plains region, which is sub- ject to very strong winds, only in the heavier soils or more protected locations. The listing method of summer fallowing has not yet been tested in comparative trials at the experiment stations, but wherever there is danger of damage by soil drifting, the listing method, as described above, should be preferred to plow- ing and harrowing. TO PREVENT SOIL DRIFTING How to prevent soil drifting has become a very serious problem to the western farmer during the last few years. The breaking of the prairie sod, the pulverizing of the soil by tillage, the dry seasons, and continuous cropping have made the surface soil finer and looser, which conditions favor soil blowing in the heavy winds which are characteristic of the western plains. The rotation of crops and seeding a part of the land again to grass, together with the planting of shelter belts and wind breaks, will be some of the permanent means employed to solve this problem. Meanwhile it is possible to temporarily prevent soil drifting by practicing proper culture methods and by protecting the surface with a dressing of straw or manure pressed into the soil with a packer or a disk harrow. 56 WHEAT SPREADING STRAW AND PACKING The writer prevented the soil from blowing on an eighty acre wheat field at the Fort Hays experi- ment station in western Kansas in the spring of 1911, by spreading straw over the field during the winter and packing it into the soil early in the spring with a subsurface packer. The packer pressed the straw into the ground causing it to stand partly on end. This kept the straw from blowing away and served as a protection to the ground, which entirely prevented the soil from drifting on this field in the very severe wind storm of March 26 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that this field was not well covered by the growing wheat which had made little growth in the fall and was therefore inclined to blow. Other fields on the experiment station farm which were not protected with straw did blow badly. During the storm referred to, the effect of the straw as a barrier to stop the drifting soil was shown in another field of 160 acres of wheat. In this field, straw had been spread in a narrow strip five or six rods -wide, extending east and west across the field, and had been packed into the soil with the subsurface packer. The north side of the field started to blow and the loose soil was swept south, taking nearly the whole field north of the straw-covered area, but here the drifting soil lodged in the straw and did little harm to the wheat south of this barrier. The subsurface packing alone without the dressing of straw cross- wise of the drill rows early in the spring also had WHEAT 57 Fig. 15. — The Dunham sub-surface packer. a beneficial effect and aided in preventing soil drifting. SHALLOW FURROW CULTIVATION On the same farm in the spring of 1912, I stopped the soil from drifting on a newly seeded alfalfa field 120 acres in area, by cultivating the drifting area with a twelve shovel two-row corn cultivator, cultivating across the wind, beginning on the side towards the wind. The drifting was stopped early in the day, with a loss of about seven acres of alfalfa, whereas if nothing had been done to check it, the drifting would have extended over the larger part of the field during the day. The middle shovel of each gang of three in the cultivator was removed. This left the soil in furrows and ridges. By the same method I have protected the sur- face of a bare summer fallow by running shallow furrows east and west across the field. One hundred-eighty acres cultivated in this way late in the fall of 1911 did not drift during the winter and was put into good condition for seeding alfalfa the next spring by a single cross harrowing. The shallow furrows did not loosen the seed bed too deeply. 58 WHEAT DEEP FURROWS WITH LISTER The best culture method to prevent soil drifting on open, bare fields is to list the soil into deep furrows and high ridges, preferably running east and west, with the lister or double mold-board plow. This condition offers almost complete protection from soil drifting. The soil should be listed when it is not too dry and loose. Even when the soil is drifting on a field, it may be stopped by listing, unless it is very loose and sandy, by starting the lister on the side towards the wind. In the fall of 1911, nearly 600 acres were listed on the Hays experiment station farm, including all corn and kafir stubble fields and all land which was to be summer fallowed or planted to intertilled crops in 1911. The results were so favorable that the same plan was continued in the fall of 1912. Fig. 16. — Shallow furrows do not loosen the seed-bed too deeply. WHEAT 59 CHAPTER V WHEAT SEEDING AND CULTIVATION Spring wheat should be sown as early in the spring as the soil can be put into favorable seed bed condition. It is preferable to risk damage by spring frosts in order to start the wheat early and thus hasten its maturing, in order that the crop may escape rust and unfavorable weather con- ditions which are likely to damage the grain near harvest time. It is difficult to name any best date for sowing fall wheat, because this will vary greatly for different sections of the country, and in different seasons even in the same locality. In the more northern areas of the winter wheat belt early seeding is usually desirable in order that the wheat may make a good start and a good cover in the fall, to afford winter protection. In the warmer climates rather late seeding is often preferred because a too rank growth from early seeding is more apt to smother during the winter. Also the early seedings are liable to attack by the Hessian fly which appears early in the fall and lays its eggs on the early sown wheat. When it is neces- sary to sow rather late, special care should be taken to have the seed bed in ideal condition to start the wheat quickly, since young, weak plants are more likely to winter kill, and the lack of cover exposes the crop to damage by wind and drifting soil. 60 WHEAT METHODS OF SEEDING When possible always sow wheat with a good drill. Drilling requires less seed than broadcasting because the seeds are more evenly distributed and more evenly covered, thus giving a more uniform germination. Drilled wheat is less likely to winter-kill because of the stronger plants, and there is a slight protection afforded by the shallow furrows. Many comparative tests at several experiment stations have given increased yields from drilling from two to ten bushels per acre. In the spring wheat states, wheat follows corn with good results when the seed bed may be well and cheaply prepared simply by disking and har- rowing. Winter wheat may follow early potatoes, or other early maturing intertilled crops which have been well cultivated, without plowing. Also, it is common practice in Kansas and states farther south to drill wheat with a one-horse drill in standing corn. When wheat follows wheat or other small grain, while the general practice is to plow or list the stubble land soon after harvest and prepare the seed bed by giving the necessary surface cultiva- tion, yet in parts of western Kansas and Nebraska many farmers disk in preparing the wheat seed bed without plowing, and much wheat is simply "stubbled in," or drilled in the stubble without any cultivation previous to sowing. This is a careless method, and yet where the soil drifts badly it seems advisable to practice it sometimes and not plow every year. WHEAT 61 GRAIN DRILLS For general use the writer prefers a good single disk drill. They are the best trash riders, but in well prepared soil the double disk drill and shoe drill may do the better work, being more readily adjusted to plant the seed at a uniform depth. The press drill is often preferred for use in the lighter soils and drier climate. The better the preparation of the seed bed and the greater the storage of moisture in the subsoil, the less neces- sary the press wheels, and if the soil is wet and sticky and apt to roll on the wheels or crust, better work may be done with chain coverers than with the press wheels. It is an advantage to have the drill equipped with both chains and press wheels and use whichever will give the best results. There is an unquestionable advantage in plant- ing corn in deep listed furrows in a dry climate, and there may be a similar advantage in planting wheat in shallow listed furrows, a little deeper than the furrows made by the ordinary drill. Listing drills are now being manufactured and are used to a limited extent. The writer is not familiar with the results of their use but would recommend them for trial. In dry farming areas which are not likely to receive heavy rains after sowing, and where the soil is light and inclined to blow, seeding with a listing drill should give an advantage over the ordinary method. THICKNESS OF SEEDING It is usual to sow wheat in drills six inches apart. However in the dry climates a greater 62 WHEAT space between drills, seven to eight inches, and even wider space is often preferred. The practice of planting wheat in rows in semi-arid areas, eighteen to twenty-four inches apart, and cul- tivating the crop has not given profitable results. There is a disadvantage in planting the drills too far apart because the wide spaces allow the growth of weeds and the wheat does not make so good a covering in its early growth, favoring soil drifting in windy climates. The proper thickness of stand should be secured by planting the seed thinner in the drill rows rather than to make the space between drills wider than six or seven inches. Comparative tests have usually favored planting in the closer drills. The amount of seed required to sow an acre varies from two to three pecks in the dry farming area to six to eight pecks in the more humid climates. DEPTH OF SEEDING Wheat should not be covered too deeply. A usual depth of drilling is two to three inches. To Fig. 17. — Drilling in wheat with a tractor. WHEAT 63 secure ideal conditions for germination the seed should be deposited in the bottom of the drill furrow or against the firm soil which will supply moisture to swell and sprout the seed and give a favorable environment for the young roots. Thus the surface of the seed bed should not be loosened too deeply or too near seeding time. If the surface is loose and dry and there is moisture beneath, it may be better to deposit the seed against the firm soil even at a depth of four or five inches rather than to deposit it near the surface of the loose, ashy bed where it will be entirely dependent upon rain to sprout and grow. In a wet season shallow seeding in a deep, loose seed bed may give good results, but it is better to prepare a proper seed bed. WINTER KILLING Winter killing of wheat occurs frequently throughout the northern and middle portions of the winter wheat belt, and is often a source of great loss and inconvenience. Wheat winter kills in several ways: 1. It may not be hardy enough to withstand the extreme cold of severe winter weather. 2. Late sown wheat or weak plants may die for lack of moisture in a dry, open winter. Even a good stand of wheat may be destroyed by such unfavorable conditions, especially if planted in a loose seed bed which was not well stored with moisture. 3. The grain may smother under a covering of ice or closely packed, icy snow. A heavy fall 64 WHEAT growth from early seeding is more apt to smother than later sown wheat or wheat which has been fall pastured. 4. The most common kind of winter killing is caused by soil heaving, due to the alternate freezing and thawing of very wet soils, which gradually lifts the plants, exposes the roots and finally raising the plants entirely clear of the soil, breaks the roots completely destroying the crop. Such winter killing is more likely to occur on poorly drained, heavy, sticky soils that remain wet at the surface than on soils of a more sandy or loamy character. Soil heaving is most likely to occur late in the winter or early in the spring, but it may occur earlier in the winter, during a period of open weather when thejsurface soil is wet. Fig. 18. — A successful cement, home-made roller. WHEAT 65 MEASURES TO PREVENT WINTER KILLING Very little can be done to prevent winter killing when the unfavorable conditions are present, but there is more or less tendency to winter killing that may be, in a measure, prevented by making the growing conditions for the wheat as favorable as possible. Naturally wet land should be drained. A well pulverized, well settled seed bed may not heave so much as a loose seed bed and the wheat will not "freeze out" or dry out so quickly in a firm soil, hence careful preparation of the seed bed is a partial preventive. Other preventive measures are medium sowing (not too late or too early), pasturing a rank fall growth, and providing wind breaks or shelter belts to break the wind and catch the snow. Wheat seldom winter kills if it has a good covering of snow all winter. Rolling the wheat early in the spring to firm the soil about the roots will often give much benefit if the heaving has not progressed too far. Some varieties of winter wheat are much hardier than others to resist winter killing, as shown by the trials at our state experiment stations, and only such should be sown, Avoid bringing seed wheat from the south for seeding in northern sections, since it will usually prove less hardy than northern grown seed. CULTIVATION AFTER SEEDING The proper preparation of the seed bed is a much more important factor in the growing of small grains than the cultivation after seeding. 5 66 WHEAT It is seldom necessary to cultivate the wheat seed bed after seeding. The necessary cultivation to cover the seed should be given the broadcasted field. In the growing of wheat the preparation of a favorable seed bed should leave the soil mellow at the surface. There are usually no heavy showers in the fall after the wheat is sown or early in the spring, the wheat grows rapidly, and by stooling soon covers the ground and protects the soil from beating rains. Thus wheat needs less cultivation after planting to maintain the soil mulch than is required by corn or other intertilled crops. After the wheat is up several inches and begin- ning to stool it may sometimes be harrowed with a light harrow or "weeder" to break a crust Fig. 19. — With a gang of harrows one man can cover eighty acres a'day. WHEAT 67 formed by heavy rains, but care should be taken not to loosen the soil too deeply so as to disturb or loosen the roots of the plants. The harrowing of young grain by covering the slender blades, may injure the stand. The results of experiment station trials in har- rowing wheat have not always been favorable. Winter wheat may often be rolled in the spring with advantage when there is much heaving of soil, in order to pack the soil about the roots. Rolling winter wheat in the spring at the Nebraska experiment station (Lincoln) increased the yield of grain five bushels per acre as an average for five years. In a windy climate it is dangerous to roll wheat as the smooth, pulverized surface soil left by rolling will drift, and destroy the crop and waste the soil. The writer has used the subsurface packer in place of the roller at the Fort Hays experiment station in Kansas with good results. The subsurface packer presses the soil about the wheat roots and leaves the surface slightly fur- rowed, which tends to resist soil drifting. PASTURING WHEAT It is a common practice to pasture winter wheat, and when done judiciously there may be no reduc- tion in yield. In fact, aside from the pasturage value which is estimated at from fifty cents to two dollars per acre, there may result an actual benefit to the crop from pasturing a rank growth of wheat on fertile soil. The grazing reduces the straw growth and may prevent winter smothering as well as lodging and blighting. The firming of WHEAT Fig. 20.— Summer-tilled wheat field, North Platte, Nebr. sub- station. Yield, sixty-seven bushels per acre. the soil by the tramping of livestock may also prove an advantage on light land, or on a seed bed which was not well settled before seeding. A weak growth of wheat should not usually be pastured since the grazing will tend to reduce the vitality of the grain still more and result in a decreased yield. Wheat may be pastured in the fall and early spring when the soil is not too wet or too dry. Very dry soil becomes pulverized and dusty by the tramping of stock, and soil drifting results. The tramping of very wet soil causes it to "poach " and puddle and the stand of wheat is likely to be injured. Too late pasturing in the spring retards the growth of the wheat and reduces the yield. At the Kansas experiment station, pasturing wheat on land of average fertility decreased the WHEAT 69 yield three bushels per acre as an average for several trials. SPRING MOWING When it cannot be pastured, mowing a very rank growth of wheat on fertile soil, early in the spring before it begins to shoot, will reduce the foliage growth and may prevent lodging and result in an increased yield. The writer has practiced this method with good results at the Kansas experiment station. If the growth is not too heavy, it may be left on the ground or the green wheat gathered for ensilage. 70 WHEAT CHAPTER VI HARVEST AND YIELD THE AVERAGE YIELD Because of the relatively high price of the grain and the relatively low cost of production a good field of wheat is one of the best paying of farm crops. The yields are sometimes very large. The writer has produced a yield of sixty bushels of Turkey wheat per acre at the Kansas experiment station, not only in small plots but in a large field. Even larger yields have been reported in Kansas and in the Palouse country in Oregon, where yields of seventy bushels per acre have been secured. Yet in spite of the great producing capacity of wheat under favorable conditions, the average yield in the United States is less than fourteen bushels per acre. Compare this with the average yields of wheat for the last decade in several European countries — Germany twenty- nine bushels, Great Britain thirty-three bushels and Denmark forty bushels per acre, and we will see that the yields in the United States may be and should be greatly increased. The low average yield of wheat in the United States is due to two primary causes — poor farming and damage to the crops by the elements. Much wheat is very carelessly planted. The farmer is continuously up against the problems of a decreas- ing soil fertility and a consequently decreasing £ 72 WHEAT productivity. The wheat crop is very susceptible to injury from unfavorable weather conditions at almost every stage in its growth. Dry weather at seeding time may cause a thin stand, or the grain may blow out or winter kill or be injured by drouth and hot winds almost up to the ma- turity stage; or it may be damaged by hail or lodged by storms and wind either before or after maturing, and even after harvesting it is liable to be damaged by wetting in the shock, causing bleaching and sprouting, thus reducing the yield and injuring the quality of the grain. DATE AND METHOD OF HARVESTING The wheat harvest of the United States begins in Texas in May and ends in North Dakota in August. In California the harvest begins about June first and continues nearly two months. East of the great plains, wheat is cut as soon as it is ripe or a little before, the harvest extending us- ually over a period of only a week or two weeks on a single farm. The grain is bound into bundles with a self binder, and placed in small shocks in the field; and later when it is dry enough it is hauled directly to the thresher, or more often put into stacks or barns and threshed later. THE HEADER In the western plains the common method of harvesting is with the header. The wheat is allowed to stand until fully ripe, when the heading begins and the headed grain is loaded loosely into barges and hauled directly to the stacks, WHEAT Fig. 22. — Harvesting wheat with a header in western Kansas. which are arranged in regular groups or "settings" of two to four stacks, usually ten acres to a "setting." In the western states the harvest may continue for a month or six weeks on a single farm . This method of harvesting is rapid and econ- omical and is well adapted to a dry climate, but often the over-ripe wheat shatters and is damaged by storms and deteriorates in quality. In the eastern part of the dry farming belt the binder and the header are often both used on the same farm, thus making it possible to harvest more of the grain in prime condition. THE COMBINE On the Pacific coast where there is no danger from rains, the harvest lasts for several weeks or months, and the wheat does not usually deter- 74 WHEAT iorate in quality in the field. It is sometimes dam- aged by sand storms. The club or square head wheat is the type generally grown, and its short straw and tight glumes prevent lodging and shattering. On the great wheat fields of California and Oregon the "combine" is used, which harvests and threshes the wheat at a single operation, the grain being sacked and left in long trains in the field or later placed in large piles, from which it is hauled and loaded directly onto the cars for shipping. The relative harvesting capa- city of the different machines and methods may be compared as follows: Width of Swath Harvesting Capacity Machine in Feet per Day in Acres Binder 5 to 8 10 to 20 Header 8 to 14 20 to 30 Horse combine. .. 16 to 20 25 to 45 Steam combine. . . 24 to 42 . . . . 75 to 125 The average price of a steam "combine" outfit is $7,500.00. They are used almost exclusively on the Pacific coast, and only on the larger farms containing from 3,000 to 20,000 acres of land. The horse "combine" is most advantageously used on the smaller farms having less than 3,000 acres. BEST STATE OF MATURITY TO HARVEST Wheat makes the largest yield and best quality of grain if harvested with the binder when it is just about fully ripe when the straw has mostly turned yellow and the grains are quite hard or in the hard dough stage. Wheat cut immature WHEAT . . 75 is apt to become shrunken, making a decreased yield and lighter weight per bushel, and it is less strong in vitality than plump wheat; but by careful grading it will usually make good seed, and if not too light, may make good flour. It is a good practice in humid regions to begin harvest- ing before the grain is fully ripe because as soon as the wheat is over-ripe it may be injured by storms and by rain which may lodge the grain or bleach it and cause it to deteriorate in quality and vitality, and the yield is likely to be reduced by shattering. In cutting with the header it is necessary to wait until the grain is dry enough to stack without danger of heating and spoiling. The binder may often be started a week or ten days before the header. SHOCKING Perhaps more wheat is injured in quality after harvest by unfavorable weather and careless handling than from any other cause. Some farmers are not only careless but absolutely neglectful in this respect. If the wheat is cut a little green, prompt shocking facilitates the com- pletion of the ripening process, favoring the trans- fer of the material from the straw to the grain, which prevents shrinkage; also the sheaves may be set up in better shocks if the straw is not al- lowed to become too dry and fluffy and brittle. Whether to cap shocks or leave them uncapped is a question. Unless wheat is well set up and the shocks carefully capped, the caps are apt to blow off and the grain will then become more 76 WHEAT exposed than if the bundles were originally set in open shocks. The writer prefers to carefully shock and cap in humid climates rather than to set in long shocks or round shocks without caps. It may be necessary to go over the field after a wind storm and replace the caps that have blown off. KINDS OF SHOCKS Long shocks are made by placing pairs of sheaves in a row, about twelve bundles in a shock, setting them down firmly and not too sloping, a pair at a time, and bracing the bundles against each other. Place the pairs alternating at each end to keep the shock plumb and regular. The outer pairs of bundles should slope slightly towards the inner pairs in order to brace the shock. A round shock with caps should contain from twelve to sixteen bundles. The writer pre- fers rather large round shocks if the grain is not too green, as they stand better. In building a round shock of sixteen bundles, place four pairs in a row, then place three bundles on each side and cap with two bundles. After the tops of the sheaves have been drawn somewhat together lay one bundle on the top of the shock at right angles to the prevailing winds, then break the second cap sheaf at the band, and spreading the ends fan-shape lay it cross-wise of the first cap with the tops towards the prevailing wind. Both for efficiency and economy of time two bundles should be handled at once. Shocking is a man's job. There is a knack about it that may WHEAT 77 be easily learned by practice, but the average hired harvest hand is usually a poor shocker. In windy, dry climates as in our western plains, where storms may be severe but with no great amount of rain, it may be advisable to build a round shock without caps something after the manner of a miniature stack. Lay one bundle on the ground and break the top back to keep the heads off the ground; set two others over this one at right angles, with heads crossing. Now fill in the angles with other bundles thus thatching the shock and bringing the top of the last bundle over the heads of the others until nine to thirteen bundles have been placed in the shock. The bun- dles should all stand quite sloping. Such a shock will shed rain well and will not blow over. STACKING In parts of our wheat growing areas, bundle stacking is almost a lost art because of the present day practice of threshing out of the shock. In the writer's judgment, this is a mistake. There may not be any economy in stacking if the thresh- ing can be done early and as soon as the grain is dry enough, but this is not usually the case. Many farmers are obliged to leave their grain in the field for several weeks or months, until the thresher can make the rounds of several other farms, and if unfavorable weather intervenes the grain may be badly damaged; while, if such grain could be stacked in well made stacks just when it is in prime condition, it would mean a great saving of grain and the extra labor would be 78 WHEAT a profitable investment for the farmer. On the other hand, grain that is carelessly stacked may be badly damaged by heavy rains wetting the stacks; but if the stacks are well and properly made such damage should not occur. HOW TO BEGIN A STACK In starting a bundle stack, whether round or elongated, the bundles should be set up in the form of a large shock beginning at the middle of the stack and setting the bundles in regular order until the confines of the stack are reached, about ten feet in diameter for a round stack and ten feet wide for a rick. Then beginning at the edge, lay a double tier of bundles around the whole stack, the butts of the first row reaching the ground, with the butts of the second row just flush with the butts of the first row. Now lay a single row with the butts reaching a little past the bands of the first row, and continue this method, laying row after row around the stack until the center is reached. The rows of bundles may be lapped a little more toward the middle of the stack in order to keep the middle full, always having a good slope towards the edge of the stack. Starting again at the edge of the stack lay the first row of bundles with the butts flush with the original first row or extending a trifle, and then work toward the middle of the stack as before. HOW TO BUILD AND COMPLETE A STACK At the third round, extend the butts of the WHEAT 79 outside row a few inches beyond the butts of the row beneath, and continue thus as succeeding tiers and rows are placed, "laying out the stack," always keeping the middle full, until the stack is seven or eight feet high. This forms the bulge. Now begin to draw in the outside rows a few inches at each round, thus finally bringing the stack to a narrow top made by the lapping of the last rows of bundles which should be tied down by driving sharpened sticks four to five feet into the top of the stack. The bulge should extend two to three feet beyond the base, which will make a stack with a ten foot base, fourteen to sixteen feet wide at the bulge. Do not tramp the outside rows of bundles. Pitch from both sides of the stack if possible. Each successive tier of bundles should thatch the preceding one, much the same as the shingles on a roof. Take considerable care as regards thatching above the bulge. By proper stacking, the grain below the bulge should be entirely protected from wetting. Fig. 24. — A good job of stacking. 80 WHEAT THE SECRET OF GOOD STACKING The secret of good stacking is to keep the middle full so that when the stack settles the bundles will slope towards the butts and towards the outside of the stack. Also the stack must be built plumb and regular. It is a job which requires some practice and considerable care, and a good stacker may well command an extra wage for such work. In stacking loose grain from the header, the same principle holds that the middle of the stack must be kept full and well tramped. The sides of the stack should be raked to remove the loose straw, and hangers should be placed as soon as the stack is completed to prevent the wind blowing off the top which is likely to occur in the first storm unless the top is tied down. >' < , $ . .\ .""' WHEAT 81 CHAPTER VII THRESHING AND MARKETING Threshing directly from the shock is perhaps the best and most economical method, if the threshing can be done early, as soon as the grain is dry and in good condition. Grain threshed from the shock will go through the sweat in the bin, but unless threshed damp it will not heat enough to injure the quality of the grain; in fact, a little heating may be desirable as it will give the grain a darker, richer color. When the grain is stacked it should be allowed to go through the sweat before threshing. If threshed and put into a dry bin it may not sweat, since the sweating process requires that grain contain some excess moisture. Sweating may not be necessary for producing a good quality of grain, but it is desirable that wheat contain enough moisture when it is stacked or threshed to cause it to sweat; otherwise it will handle badly, shattering during the stacking or cracking during the threshing. Do not stack or thresh when the grain is too damp, since such grain may heat too much or become stack-burned or bin-burned and thus injured in quality and value, while its vitality for seed may be entirely destroyed. Also there may be considerable loss in threshing too damp or too tough grain, since all the grain may not be removed from the straw. MARKETING Much grain is now hauled directly to the ele- vator from the threshing machine and sold or 6 82 WHEAT stored for future sale. If the price is relatively high at threshing time it is usually advisable to sell at once. Often the price is high when threshing first begins but decreases as the supply of grain increases. The present tendency of rushing the grain to market at threshing time often results in glutting the market and lowering the price below normal ; and also the railroads and elevators are unable to handle the large quantities of grain properly. It would be better if more grain were stored in good bins on the farms and hauled to the market at an opportune time. This plan would tend to keep the market more steady and allow for the grain to be handled in better condition and more economically. SHRINKAGE AND STORAGE The shrinkage of dry wheat, as threshed and placed in the bin, is very small and will seldom amount to 2%. One percent is an average shrink- age for six months, and after the first loss of excess moisture, the grain should not decrease in weight even by longer storing, except as it may be in- jured by insect or animal pests. In the warmer climates, grain stored for several months is likely to be attacked by weevil and often severely damaged. Hence as a rule it is not advisable to hold wheat over during the summer in Kansas and states farther south, unless due precaution is taken to prevent weevil damage. The farmer should take into consideration the cost of storage in making his decision whether to sell or not at threshing time. This cost, including WHEAT 83 84 WHEAT the storage charges, the natural shrinkage in weight, the insurance against loss by fire and cy- clone, the interest on the money represented by the value of the wheat and the extra cost of handling the grain, may amount to from five to ten cents per bushel depending on the length of time of storage. Thus eighty to eighty-five cents per bushel at threshing time may be better than ninety cents six months later. THE PRICE OF WHEAT The market price of wheat is normally deter- mined by the world's conditions of supply and demand. The United States produces more wheat than is required for local consumption, therefore the price is fixed by the country which buys the export, but such price should under normal con- ditions be higher than the surplus producing country could fix for itself. Hence the export price is a benefit to the wheat grower. TRICKS OF THE TRADE It is true that with a large, visible supply of wheat in a certain section the tendency is to depress the local price at threshing time when the bulk of the crop is sold, but this is a " trick of the trade " on the part of the buyers, due in part to the congested condition and the impression which the farmer receives that the supply is greater than the demand. The true market price of wheat is always established by the world's supply and not by the crop of any one state or locality. WHEAT 85 Under the present conditions of trade by in- dividuals or corporations, the local price of wheat depends largely on competition. For example, two cents less per bushel was paid for wheat at a non-competitive point in North Dakota than at competitive points only six miles distant. When the local elevator systems combine, the only effec- tive remedy is for the farmers to combine and start independent elevators, and secure the aid of the law if necessary to get their wheat shipped to the primary markets. The matter of marketing and securing the highest market price is an im- portant part of the wheat raising business, and will receive much more attention and considera- tion in the future than it has in the past. COMMERCIAL GRADING OF WHEAT The value of wheat varies with its quality and with the purpose for which it is to be used. The principal characteristics which aid in fixing the grade are weight per bushel, plumpness, soundness, color, and freedom from smut, foreign matter and from mixture- with a different type of wheat. Since gradations are continuous, it is difficult to draw the line, hence grading requirements are not very definite and are often largely a matter of judgment by the grain inspector. The com- mercial classes vary somewhat in the different markets. The general classes on the Chicago market are: White Winter Wheat, Red Winter Wheat, Hard Winter Wheat, Northern Spring Wheat, Spring Wheat, White Spring Wheat and Colorado Wheat. Each class has from two to 86 WHEAT four regular grades, and wheat may be of such poor quality as to be graded "rejected" or "no grade." INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION The rules for grading grain are fixed by boards of grain inspectors in the several states where the great markets are located. These rules are pub- lished and may be secured from the chairmen of said boards, or from almost any grain dealer. In all the great markets there is a rigid system of grain inspection and grain grading under state super- vision and control which greatly facilitates the movement of wheat and reduces fraud and unfair- ness in the grain trade. State weighing depart- ments have been established at the great terminals in several states, by which all the wheat is now officially weighed, and the cheating by false weigh- ing which was formerly notorious has been prac- tically done away with. LOCAL GRAIN INSPECTION There is much less organization and control of the handling of grain at the local elevators than at the terminals. The correctness of the weighing and the grading, and the fairness of the price of wheat at the local elevator depend largely on local competition and on the honesty of the grain dealer. As a rule, the local buyer is honest in the weighing. Fraudulent weighing is very much condemned by all grain dealers associations, and usually competition compels the dealer to pay all the market will allow. WHEAT 87 The local dealer often gives too little considera- tion to the actual quality of wheat in fixing the local market price. He learns about what the general run of the wheat bought at his elevator will grade, and he then pays about the same price to each farmer, even though the wheat may actually vary considerably in quality and grade. The writer has stood at a grain elevator in a western Kansas town and observed the delivery of wheat which in his judgment should have been given three different grades, yet the grain was all graded No. 2 and sold at the same price. This is not only unfair to the farmer selling the better grade of wheat but it encourages carelessness and neglect on the part of the producers in keeping their grain pure and of high quality. The grain dealer should make it to the advantage of the farmer to sell a pure type of wheat of high grade by paying a higher price for such grain, and he should advertise the fact. CO-OPERATION THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM The establishment of co-operative grain ele- vators by the farmers has progressed rapidly in the last ten years, and is having a salutary effect in maintaining more uniform prices to the pro- ducers, but such co-operation considers one side of the problem only — the producer's side. It takes no account of the handling and distribution of the grain and its manufacture into food products and their ultimate purchase and use by the consumer. In recent years the very high cost of living is calling attention to the fact that our methods of 88 WHEAT handling and distribution are cumbersome and more expensive than they need be. We need co- operation along the whole line, and a spirit of friendliness and fairness among all those interested in order that these conditions may be improved. The present condition calls for a careful investiga- tion and such reorganization of our methods and practices as may be found necessary in order that the farmers' products may be more fully utilized and placed in the hands of the consumer without unnecessary waste, and at a reasonable cost. COST OF PRODUCTION* The cost of raising wheat varies greatly in different sections of the United States. The pro- duction of a bushel of wheat in Washington costs 20 to 35 cents; in Oregon, twenty cents; and in Fig. 26. — Wheat field on Burlington farm, Holdrege, Nebr. Yield, 52 bushels per acre. *Data from Book of Wheat — Dondlinger. WHEAT 89 North Dakota, 50 to 54 cents. The acre cost, including interest on land and equipment, has been computed since 1900 in several states as follows: North Dakota, $8.28; Minnesota, $6.40; Kan- sas, $7.80; Nebraska, $8.26; Washington, $7.20; and Wyoming, $10.38. This is an average cost of $8.05 per acre or fifty-seven and one-half cents per bushel. To raise a bushel of wheat in Russia costs 34 to 48 cents; in Italy, sixty-nine cents; in Hungary, 52 to^63 cents; in Germany, ninety- five cents; and in India, sixty-five cents. The acre cost is given as $8.00 for Russia; $8.29 for Argentina; and $11.69 for Hungary. The cost of raising wheat and all kinds of small grains has been greatly reduced by the introduc- tion of improved implements of tillage and modern harvesting machinery. To produce a bushel of wheat in the United States in 1830 required 183 minutes of human labor. In 1896 only ten minutes were required. The labor cost per bushel including both animal and human labor is stated as twenty cents in 1830, and only ten cents in 1896. The greatest saving has been in the har- vesting. The human labor which is still required is quite light compared with that of 1830. PROFIT IN WHEAT RAISING The actual profit in raising wheat, however, is not large. In a favorable season, bonanza farmers of the Red River valley made a profit of $3.32 per acre, or 8% on the capital invested. This takes no account of the exhaustion of soil fertility. 90 WHEAT To make much profit it will be seen that the yield must be increased above the average fourteen bushels per acre. The cost of raising an acre of wheat has been greatly reduced by the introduction and use of improved machinery and by decreasing the labor cost. Now we must give more attention to decreasing the cost per bushel by increasing the acre yield. The sixty bushel yield which the writer produced at the Kansas experiment station in 1906 cost less than fifteen cents per bushel. The price of wheat on the market depends on the grade. It is therefore of great importance that every farmer be familiar with the methods of scoring and grading grain. SCORING WHEAT Judging and scoring of grains is now a regular part of the course of study in our agricultural colleges. The methods and score cards used in different institutions vary considerably. When a sample of wheat is examined from a "seed standpoint," purity, color, weight, uniformity, quality and vitality are noted. From a "market standpoint," weight and quality are the main points considered, but purity as regards freedom from foreign substance, other grain, or other types of wheat is also given an important place. The weight of wheat is indicated by its plumpness and dryness. Damp grain or shrunken grain is light. The quality relates not only to the weight, the soundness and dryness of the grain, but also to its composition or flour-making value as indicated by the texture, hardness or softness of the kernel, and the relative thicknejss of the hull. WHEAT 91 SCORE CARD The score card given below brings out the points mentioned as well as any perhaps, but the reader is advised to get in touch with the agricultural college of his own state in order to secure special information which may apply to the grading or scoring of wheat in a particular territory or market. STUDENT'S SCORE CARD* WHEAT Name of variety POINTS Perfect Score EXHIBIT NUMBER 1 2 3 4 5 TRUENESS TO TYPE OB BREED CHARACTER- ISTICS: 10 5 5 5 5 15 10 5 5 15 15 5 3. Shape of kernel — conformity to standard 4. Size of kernel — conformity to standard . 5. Color — conformity to standard 6. Gluten or starch. Amount of gluten is indicated by the hardness. In soft wheats mark on the per cent of starch as indicated by softness of berry. These qualities may be judged approximately by the color and texture of the kernel . . . MARKET CONDITIONS: 1. Vitality and maturity as indicated by plumpness and brightness of color (make 2. Moisture content (make moisture deter- 3. Freedom from smut 1 5. Soundness or freedom from injury. No 1 broken, rotten, sprouted, musty, bin- [ burnt or otherwise injured berries J 6. Amount of foreign matter (determine Total 100 Commercial Grade Student's Name. Date. * Note— This form of score card, used at the Kansas Agricul- tural College, was prepared by the author. 92 WHEAT CHAPTER VIII WHEAT ENEMIES WEEDS Weeds damage wheat both by reducing the yield and injuring the quality of the grain. The most objectionable weeds associated with wheat fields are chess or cheat, wild oats, cockle, wheat- thief, and wild mustard. All of these are annuals and readily controlled by careful preparation of the seed bed and a proper rotation of crops. Weed pests become troublesome only where wheat is grown continuously in the same fields. The growth of weeds is a protest of nature against the practice of continual grain cropping. There is no remedy except rotation of crops, and clean cultivation or clean summer fallow. INJURIOUS INSECTS It is impossible in this discussion to more than touch on this part of the subject. The insects and diseases which attack wheat often seriously injure or destroy the crop, and in some cases there is little or no means of preventing the damage. CHINCH BUG AND HESSIAN FLY Of the insect enemies the chinch bug and the Hessian fly are perhaps the most destructive. The remedies to stop their ravages are preventive only, such as burning over the stubble land, which allows the chinch bug no cover for hibernating, and destroys the Hessian fly, since the insect WHEAT Fig. 27. — The Enemies of Wheat.— Chinch-bugs in different stages of growth. A single egg is shown in a, and others on the roots and a lower leaf; in b is shown a very young bug, and in c, d, and e the later stages, while / shows the adult and mature insect. The natural size of the bugs is shown on the stems of the plant. 94 WHEAT remains in the pupa stage in the stubble after harvest. "Trap crops" are sometimes sown for both insects, such as patches of millet planted early in the spring to attract the chinch bug, and the early planting of wheat in the fall to act as a decoy to attract the flies. When the bugs have congregated or the flies have laid their eggs, these crops may be plowed under, thus destroying the insects. Migrating chinch bugs may be kept out of the fields to some extent by plowing protecting furrows about the fields, and making coal tar barriers, etc. Under certain favorable climatic conditions chinch bugs may be largely destroyed by fungous diseases to which they are subject. The Hessian fly appears early in the fall, and its attacks may be avoided by late sowing. At the Kansas experiment station (Manhattan) the average of several trials shows results favor- ing seeding during the last week in September or the first week in October. Even later seeding is less affected by the fly, but the very late sown wheat is likely to make a weak growth in the fall, and is more liable to be winter killed than earlier sown wheat. Perhaps one of the best means for checking these insect pests and the plant diseases which attack wheat, is to practice a regular system of crop rotation. The Hessian fly can be starved out almost completely by the abandonment for one year of the crops in which it breeds — wheat, rye and barley; while if a system of rotation with corn be adopted that would entirely dissociate small grains for a single season very little damage from chinch bugs would occur. WHEAT 95 GRAIN WEEVILS There are several species of grain weevils which attack and often severely damage stored wheat. The two most common in the United States are the granary weevil, the adult insect of which is a small snouted beetle, and the grain moth or angoumois. The larvae of these insects and also the beetle itself attack the wheat kernels, devour- ing the mealy part. They develop and multiply very rapidly. The remedy is fumigation with bisulphide of carbon, one pound to one ton of grain or to 1,000 cubic feet of empty space. Hydro- cyanic acid gas is used for fumigating mills and large grain elevators. Naphthaline is the most effective preventive. FUNGOUS DISEASES— RUST AND SMUT Among plant diseases, rust and smut are per- haps the most destructive. There is no remedy for rust other than the breeding of rust-resistant varieties of wheat, and so far no fully rust- resistant varieties have been produced, although certain varieties growing side by side in a field often show a different susceptibility to the attacks of rust. This may be due, however, to different periods of maturing and to weather conditions as much as to the variety. It is estimated that the damage by stinking smut in many seasons amounts to 10% of the total wheat crop of the United States, while certain fields may show a much larger percentage of damage. This disease may be almost wholly prevented. In 96 WHEAT threshing smutty wheat the smut balls break and the small, dust-like spores adhere to the wheat kernels. When such wheat is planted the smut spores sprout and produce a fungous growth which infects the young wheat plant and grows within it, fruiting and forming its spores in the head of the wheat, taking the place of the grain. Any treatment which will destroy these spores without injuring the grain of wheat will prevent smut. Several treatments have been more or less successfully used, as hot water, copper sulphate or bluestone, corrosive sublimate, and formal- dehyde. TREAT WITH FORMALDEHYDE The best remedy known for stinking smut in wheat is to treat the seed with a solution of formal- dehyde. Use one pound of formaldehyde (40% strength) to forty gallons of water. Either spray the wheat or dip it into a barrel or tank containing the solution, taking care that the grain becomes thoroughly wet. The wet grain may be left in piles and covered with blankets for a few hours in order to retain the formaldehyde gas and insure the destruction of all the smut spores. Then spread the grain quite thinly on a tight floor or canvas and allow it to dry from twelve to twenty- four hours, shoveling it over once or twice. Care should be taken not to allow the wet grain to heat in the pile. The usual method is to treat one day the seed that is to be sown the next day. The wheat thus treated will swell some, and in order to sow the required amount per acre the drill WHEAT 97 should be set to sow about one-fifth to one-fourth more grain than the usual amount. If the smut spores adhering to the wheat grains are destroyed, there is little danger from the smut spores that may remain in the soil coming into contact with the young wheat plants, and the resulting crop should be practically free from stinking smut. Formaldehyde is a poison, and if the treated wheat is eaten by poultry or other livestock while it is wet it is likely to injure or kill the animals, but when the wheat has become fairly dry there is no danger from feeding the treated grain be- cause the formaldehyde evaporates and no poison will remain in the wheat. Loose smut of wheat is less injurious than hid- den or stinking smut, but it is harder to control. Loose smut destroys the heads and grain the same as stinking smut but it matures earlier and the smut spores are scattered by the wind while the wheat is growing. Some of these spores fall into the glumes of the growing wheat and sprout, and infect the kernels and make some growth before the grain reaches maturity. These young smut plants remain dormant from the time the wheat matures until the grain is planted, when they start growth again with the sprouting wheat, and growing within the wheat plant reach ma- turity forming spores on the spike where the wheat grain should have formed. These black- ened or bare spikes occur soon after the wheat reaches the full heading stage. It is difficult to destroy the young smut plants which have started within the wheat kernels. 7 98 WHEAT Ordinary treatments for stinking smut do not kill loose smut but loose smut may be destroyed by treating the infected seed grain with hot water. This treatment is also effective for destroying stinking smut. HOT WATER TREATMENT FOR LOOSE OR STINKING SMUT OF WHEAT* Dip the wheat in hot water at a temperature of from 132 to 133° Fahrenheit. The seed should be placed for the purpose in a coarsely woven basket covered with wire netting, or else in a coarse gunny sack. The basket or sack must not be filled full, as the grain must be loose inside. There should be six or eight times as much hot water as the bulk of the grain to be treated, and the temperature of the water must be kept at the right point by letting in steam, or by adding hot water from time to time if necessary. The grain must be lifted out of the water four or five times during the treatment and allowed to drain. This is needful to insure that all the grain comes into intimate contact with hot water at the right temperature. If not convenient to keep the water at 132 or 133° it may be allowed to go higher, but the treat- ment must be shortened, and at 145° the treat- ment must not be prolonged beyond five minutes, and care must be taken that the water is even in temperature throughout; otherwise some grain "The above treatment for stinking smut is given in Farmers Bulletin No. 250,United States Department of Agriculture .WHEAT 99 will be killed and other grain insufficiently treated so the smut will not be killed. If steam is available the water can easily be heated by conducting a steam pipe into the vessel. The steam, in getting in, heats the water and at the same time stirs it thoroughly. The hot water treatment requires no outlay at all for chemicals, but requires careful attention and considerably more labor than any of the other treatments. If properly carried out it is undoubtedly the best treatment for all kinds of grain smuts. After removing the grain from the hot water, spread on a clean floor or on a piece of canvas to dry. The layer of grain should not be more than three inches thick. If it cannot be spread out at once, dip in cold water and set to one side until it can be attended to. It dries best if spread while hot. After one portion is spread out an- other can be treated, and so on, until all the seed has been disinfected. 100 WHEAT CHAPTER IX MAINTAINING SOIL FERTILITY Our agricultural teaching and modern methods of farm practice have resulted in largely increased crop yields at the expense of soil fertility. Experi- ment stations and many farmers have been busy investigating and applying better tillage methods in the growing of wheat, and this is well. As the writer has determined by experiments it is pos- sible to double the yield of wheat in a single season by careful and timely preparation of the seed bed ; but the scientific tillage of the soil should be combined with crop rotation, green manuring and the use of barnyard manure and other neces- sary fertilizers, or it will degenerate into a mining proposition — mining the soil of its fertility. In a sense, " tillage is manure" because the favorable conditions produced by the cultivation of the land cause the plant food in the soil to become available faster than would be the case without tillage. But good tillage alone will not keep the soil fertile; rather it may cause the fer- tility of the soil to become exhausted more rapidly by the production of larger crops. There is also a tendency to waste the soluble plant food by drainage and soil drifting. The great problem in western wheat farming today is not how to get larger yields out of the soil for a few years, but rather how to produce paying crops every year and at the same time maintain the potential fertility and productiveness of the land. WHEAT 101 CONTINUOUS CROPPING THE MAIN FAULT The fault with most wheat producing sections is that the land is cropped with wheat too con- tinuously. The continuous growing of wheat on the same soil has always proved disastrous in the course of years. This has been the history of wheat farming, and largely on this account the wheat-growing area of the United States has moved ever westward. It appears now that most of the land available for the growing of wheat has been taken, and if wheat raising in this country is to continue to be profitable there must be a change in our methods of farming. Fig. 28. — A typical Montana wheat field. Millions of acres like these are still waiting for the plow. 102 WHEAT WHEAT SICK LAND Fertile land which has been cropped with wheat for a long time becomes "wheat sick." It is not necessarily exhausted in fertility — it needs a rest, a change of crop. The soil is likely to become exhausted in nitrogen and organic matter and humus, and it may become deficient in some of the mineral elements of plant food. But the prob- lem of reduced yields is not a matter of plant food alone. The continuous cropping with wheat infects the soil with plant diseases and injurious insects, and the loss of organic matter and con- tinuous tillage destroys the ideal texture and tilth which characterized the virgin prairie when it was first broken. What the old wheat land needs worst and first is a proper rotation of crops which will serve to aerate the soil and free it of weeds and infectious diseases and injurious insects, and at the same time renew the supply of organic matter and nitrogen. ROTATION PLANS In planning rotations, four general classes of crops should be provided for if conditions will allow: 1. A "money" crop, or crop to be sold, which may remove from the soil considerable quantities of plant food. 2. A leguminous crop to return nitrogen and organic matter to the soil, and also by its deep root system to collect subsoil phosphorus, potas- sium and lime. WHEAT 103 3. (a) A crop for feeding farm animals, the plant food of which is largely returned to the soil in manure; (b) a crop for green manure in case livestock raising is not a part of the farming plan. 4. An intertilled crop for destroying weeds and improving the physical and sanitary conditions of the soil. The arrangement or order of crops in a rotation system should follow as far as possible these rules: 1. To alternate shallow and deep rooted crops. 2. Crops which furnish organic matter should alternate with those which favor its rapid decom- position. 3. Use at least one leguminous crop in the rotation in order to increase the supply of plant food in the soil. 4. Crops in rotation should vary in time of planting, cultivation, and harvest season as much as possible, and in amount and kind of their plant food requirements. 5. (a) Commercial fertilizer should be applied to the special crop which will be most benefited by its use, such as wheat, clover, or alfalfa, (b) Manure should be applied to the hardy, more vigorous growing crops, such as corn and forage crops or grasses and clover which should precede wheat. The kinds of crops in the rotation will depend upon the climatic and soil conditions, the market requirements and the kind of farming. In the more humid sections ideal rotation systems are not difficult to plan and execute. The following 104 WHEAT are some wheat rotations in practical use which include most of the requirements named : 1. Wheat, clover, potatoes — three year rota- tion. 2. . Wheat, clover, corn, oats — four year rota- tion. 3. Wheat, clover and timothy (2 years), corn, oats — five year rotation. 4. Wheat (2 years), alfalfa (5 years), corn (2 years), oats — ten year rotation. 5. Wheat, wheat plus catch crop of cowpeas, corn, oats — four year rotation. 6. Wheat, wheat, cowpeas — three year rota- tion. 7. Wheat, corn and cowpeas, oats — three year rotation. It is possible to use barley or other small grain in place of oats. Other green manure crops may be used instead of cowpeas, such as sand vetch, field peas, sweet clover, crimson clover, etc. ROTATION FOR SEMI-ARID LAND A regular and systematic rotation of crops is not so easily adopted and carried out in the semi- arid regions, but the following plans may be successfully used : 1. Wheat, flax, fallow — three year rotation. 2. Wheat, corn, flax — three year rotation. 3. Wheat, flax, corn, oats — four year rotation. 4. Wheat (4 years), grasses and legumes (5 years), corn — ten year rotation. 5. Wheat (2 years) green crop with fallow, corn — four year rotation. BBHBBi 106 WHEAT 6. Wheat, kafir (or other sorghum), fallow- three year rotation. 7. Wheat, wheat plus green manure, kafir, fallow — four year rotation. 8. Wheat (2 years), kafir, green crop with fallow — four year rotation. 9. Wheat, corn (or other forage), oats plus green manure, fallow — four year rotation. 10. Wheat, corn, cowpeas with fallow — three year rotation. Alfalfa may be grown successfully and used in rotation in the more favorable soils of the semi- arid regions. The first five plans are adapted to the northwestern spring wheat area, where it is difficult to use leguminous or green manuring crops. The last five may be successfully prac- ticed in Kansas and the southwest in the growing of winter wheat. Plan No. 6 is now being prac- ticed on the 3,600 acre experimental farm at Fort Hays. One-third of the tilled upland on this farm is planted to wheat each year, one-third to intertilled and forage crops, mainly kafir, milo and sweet sorghum, and one-third remains fallow each year, making no crop and receiving summer culture. During the year of fallow the land should receive a dressing of manure, or early planted crops may be plowed under for green manure. Wheat follows the summer fallow and the forage crops and the sorghums follow the wheat, thus every year the great income producing crop, wheat, is grown under the most favorable conditions. Where conditions are more humid two or three crops of wheat may be raised after fallow before the field is planted again with sorghums. WHEAT 107 MIXED FARMING Such a system of farming compels the raising of livestock to consume the forage, and this will necessitate the building of silos and forage barns to save the forage in large enough quantities so that there will always be a reserve supply to tide over a very dry season and thus make dry farming permanent and sure. In the dry farming areas of the Pacific slope and in the drier parts of the west- ern plains and mountain states where dry farming is practiced, alternate cropping and bare summer fallowing seems to be as yet the most practical method of maintaining crop yields. Perhaps haps the future may develop green crops which may be successfully used for green manure in these dry areas in order to restore the decreasing soil humus and organic matter. Under irrigation it is possible to introduce one or more of the rota- tion plans in use in humid climates, with perhaps some variation in the kinds of crops. INFLUENCE OF CROP ROTATION ON WHEAT YIELDS The influence of individual crops in rotations on succeeding wheat yields is shown by a long series of experiments at the North Dakota exper- ment station, in which wheat was grown after each of several crops each year for three years in succession in four year rotations, thus eliminating the effect of seasons. As assistant agronomist at the North Dakota experiment station the writer had the privilege of conducting this work for five years (1898 to 1902) and started this particu- lar series of rotations. The results taken from 108 WHEAT North Dakota bulletin No. 100, by Shepperd and Doneghue, are given below. TABLE V Showing increase in yield per acre of wheat after various crops, compared with wheat after wheat. Wheat After 1st Year Bushels 2d Year Bushels 3d Year Bushels Total Increase Bushels Wheat Torn Potatoes Check 7.87 —1.49* Check 7.57 13.29 Check 2.40 4.17 Check 17.84 15.97 Mangels Rape Field peas Millet Timothy Fallow (no crop).. . 6.95 7.55 6.53 7.41 1.84 7.45 8.57 8.84 1.93 5.99 8.90 3.46 2.10 3.29 0.29 2.26 6.16 2.38 17.62 19.68 8.75 15.63 16.90** 13.29 *Decrea3e. **There was 6.76 bushels increase in yield the fourth yoar. There WES no increase in yield of wheat, as an average, after flax or other small grains. The largest total increase in wheat yields for three years was 19.68 bushels per acre, after rape. The second largest was 17.84 bushels after corn. The average "check" yield of wheat after wheat, in corn series was 15.35 bushels per acre; in the rape series, 16.14 bushels per acre. FERTILIZER NEEDS OF WHEAT The plant food constituents in a normal wheat crop of twenty-five bushels per acre, also in a normal crop of corn, oats, clover, alfalfa, and the fertility in manure and some other fertilizers together with its value, are given in Table VI. s .s "d £ I I I O 02 ^ « ^ 03 03 o c • rH >> 1 — 3 * ^ 2 > 00 ^ i— 1 Tt IO O CD t> Tf OO OO O O O TH T-H »- < rH C< CO IO OO «O Tt lO Ci IO CO OO ^ O Tf -^ rf -O*-O I-H o c^j w o co i-j o c^j co 10 ca c 00 -^* • -OO (NOJ (MCO