Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1875 — Drilled vs. Broadcast Wheat. [ARTICLE]

Drilled vs. Broadcast Wheat.

Dr. E. M. Pendleton, Professor of Agriculture in the Georgia State College of Agriculture, has made some experiments in sowing wheat broadcast and in drills, the results being largely in favor of the latter system. In the first place less than half the quantity of seed is required per acre, if sown in drills, than broadcast, this being no small item saved where a large area of land is cultivated. The yield reported is nearly 50 per cent, in favor of drilling; besides, for every bushel of wheat obtained from broadcast sowing, 137 pounds of straw were produced, and from the drilled only ninety-nine pounds. From this showing it would appear that a man, in raising thirty bushels of wheat per acre in drills, gets a half ton less straw than by the broadcast system; consequently drilled wheat is the least exhaustive of fertility in proportion to the amount of grain produced. In the experiments referred to it was further shown that culture of the growing crop produced decidedly beneficial results. After the crop was well started in spring, a subsoil plow was run between each two rows, breaking up the earth, but throwing none against the plants. If stirring the soil about corn in summer is beneficial, we can see no good reason why it should not be for the young wheat plant. Whether the increase in yield and quality of grain will be sufficient to pay the extra cost of culture remains to 1 be determined by a series of experiments extending through several years. One or two failures or successes are not to be taken as conclusive iw demonstrating the value or worthlessnessof such systems of culture.— N. K Sun.