Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1876 — The Yield of Wheat. [ARTICLE]

The Yield of Wheat.

The wheat crop as the chief food grain of the world ought certainly to be grown with profit. If this staple crop is* by universal consent admitted to be an unprofitable one, there must necessarily be something wrong in its management. No other crop can take its place under our present system of farming, for it is in the vast majority ot cases made the vehicle for bringing in grass and clover, and its place in the usual rotation cannot well be filled by any substitute. But there is a universal complaint that there is no profit in growing wheat. This is very generally true, but it does not follow that the blame belongs to the wheat, for with some farmers wheat is by far the best money crop they raise. But these farmers raise far more than the low average of twelve or fifteen bushels per acre. It may be taken as a general rule that a yield of less than twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre is grown at a loss, at least in those localities where it is necessary to use manure to produce the grain. Where the “ virgin soil” is still unexhausted and manure is left te rot idly in the yards, or to be washed into the streams, there may still be some little profit in twenty bushels per acre. But where ten to twenty loads of manure per acre is used every four years, and lime, superphosphate or other fertilizers are applied periodically, in addi-

tion, a crop of even twenty-five bushels is hardly profitable. Still a larger yield than this is the exception rather than the rule upon well-cultivated farms. An elaborate effort has been made recently by Mr. Klippart, the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture of Ohio, to ascertain how frequently forty bushels of wheat per acre has been grown by farmers in that State. A circular was Issued to the Secretaries of the County Agricultural Societies requesting the names of those farmers who had within their knowledge grown forty bushels of wheat or over per acre. From Champaign County five names were reported; three of these farmers had grown forty bushels, one forty-five, and one fifty-one bushels per acre. In Hardin County tv»o names were obtained. Mercer County furnished six names; Morgan County, one; Putnam County, one; Shelby County, three; and Sandusky County, three names, one of which was that of a farmer who raised

sixty-one bushels per acre. With three few exceptions the yields reported were a few of thirty bushels or rwr, area? as twenty-five bushels, aad la area? «rr the latter yield waa mentioard m a* «•* traordinary crop. Ia SMBe rare* *k» yield was reported as Mag Mb ares* than the quantity of aid that had tare sown. It ia largely tsMdMI hi «** to sow the wheat upon the cm* reafeM simply harrowing ia drewl at »re*Na. it with one plowing or rnfUriTtag Where this is done a ywdliMi yield cere not be looked for, even upon lire rkk but. toms of that generally fertile Btetr. Tire few large crops reported are wfthoetdouiil raised in a different manner from this, although we have no means of knowing the methods by which they were grown. It is the same in other States. Forty years ago forty bushels of wheat per acre was very common in Western New York and Ohio, where now a third of that quantity is an ordinary crop and a half of it a good one. It is doubtful if any other State in the whole country could make a better showing than Ohio, although the average yield of wheat is slowly increasing in the older States. It is on the way to a minimum in the latest settled of the Western States, California included, and will there be some years yet before it will reach a turning point. The incentive to a better management of the wheat crop is a powerful one. It is the necessity for -the

means of living in comfort. A farmer who raises twelve bushels of wheat per acre can hardly be said to live; he exists but cannot live in comfort upon such an income nor can he make life upon his farm desirable to his children. Necessity must force him to improve his mode of culture and to prepare the ground very much better than he has done heretofore. A low price to wheat relieves the American farmer from much foreign competition and it is hardly probable that we shall see the price of wheat advance much above the present rates unless as a consequence of a light yield. But a doubled yield is equal to a doubled price, and we can safely produce such a crop, inasmuch as with the high rents paid by English farmers and the greater profit in grazing wheat-growing in that country, which is our best customer for wheat, is yearly decreasing in extent. To produce this doubled crop is not impossible; the fact that some farmers do it proves that others may do it also. —American Agriculturist. It is believed that Vesuvius means to make it hot again for the surrounding country, and amidst your woes be thankful that yon don’t own any garden land at the loot of the growling mountain.— Detroit Free Press.

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